Walter Kirn Quotes

To be without sympathy is to be alone in the world--without friends or country, home or kindred.

So many of us are reaching out, hoping someone out there will grab our hands and remind us we are not as alone as we fear.

Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little?

Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here.

If there is one person on the planet who still is suffering from loneliness and from pain or despair, and we don't know about it, or we don't want to know about it, then something is wrong with the world.

A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.

I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It’s moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest.

Sometimes, the loneliness probably got to be too much and anyone seemed better than no one.

You can mean more than one. You can mean thousands. I'm not in any immediate danger, I'll say to you. I'll pretend you can hear me. But it's no good, because I know you can't.

I cannot cure everybody. I cannot help everybody. But to tell the lonely person that I am not far or different from that lonely person, that I am with him or her, that's all I think we can do and we should do.

Here I am an old man in a long nightgown making muffled noises at people who may be no worse than I am.

I get so lonely sometimes, I could put a box on my head and mail myself to a stranger.

But there's no joy at all, people say "Oh well he's drunk and happy let him sleep it off"--The poor drunkard is *crying*--He's crying for his mother and father and great brother and great friend, he's crying for help. (p.111)

No one really wants to admit they are lonely, and it is never really addressed very much between friends and family. But I have felt lonely many times in my life.

All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world.

From the boardroom to the bedroom, we're connected 24/7, yet loneliness is at an all-time high. More people are reaching for mobile devices than for the hand of someone in need. Where did our humanity go?

My first job was in a nursing home - a terrible place in retrospect. It was in an old house, and the residents were so lonely. People rarely visited them. I only stayed there a couple of months, but it made a strong impression on me.

You can't put abandonment and alienation under arrest.

We're really all alone. We can't ever get inside another person's spirit, and see the world they do. So we are alone in that sense. The only way we have to communicate feelings is through words.

I'm no expert standing at a podium giving speeches. I share heartbeats. Compassion.

Why don't people take the trouble to let you know that they are alive? It is so much more important. The whole system is wrong. No sooner do I die, than all the flowers I have ever longed for in life pour in.

I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.

I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human face looking at me.

Solitude is pleasant. Loneliness is not.

A lot of people have to deal with the feeling that their worlds are caving in.