Nicole Krauss Quotes

Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.

I spend most of my time alone, because I so value and thrive in the quiet. Heaven.

I made the remark that I don't avoid people in order to live quietly, but rather in order to be able to die quietly.

I feel calm when I'm on my own.

Extraordinary things happen in solitude.

As before, there is a great silence, with no end in sight. The writer surrenders, listening.

The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude.

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.

Although I have always loved the noise of laughter, I really can't fear the coming of quiet. As for funerals, I rather like them. Such nice things are always said about the deceased, I feel sad that they had to miss hearing it all by just a few days.

Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields--there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze--and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them.

Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great.

There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it.

I aspire only to silence.

I love silence.

But I do like to have peace and quiet for a good hour.

I like to take walks in the park by myself, where no one can bother me and I can think.

When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.

By all means use some time to be alone.

There's nothing like the peace of the countryside, the quiet and the lack of distraction. It helps you to focus your mind.

I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes.

I like my peace and quiet whenever I can grab it.

I like gardening - it's a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.