Lawrence Durrell Quotes

The wonder of an artist's performance grows with the range of his penetration, with the instinctive sympathy that makes him, in his mortal isolation, considerate of other men's fate and a great diviner of their secret, so that his work speaks to them kindly, with a deeper assurance than they could have spoken with to themselves.

The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world.

Music was invented to confirm human loneliness.

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?

I think people are isolated and really lonely.

I think everyone is lonely whether you are in a good marriage or a bad marriage somewhere down the line you become lonely, and to get rid of that loneliness you have to try really hard.

We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy.

The tools are real. The viewer is real, you, the artist, is real and a part of everything you paint. You connect yourself to the viewer by sharing something that is inside of you that connects with something inside of him. All you have as your guide is that you know what moves you. All you have to do it with is a brush, some chemical and canvas, and technique.

Loneliness has little to do with what we do or where we do it, whether we're married or unmarried, optimists or pessimists, heterosexual or homosexual. Loneliness has to do with the sudden clefts we experience in every human relation, the gaps that open up with such stomach-turning unexpectedness. In a brief moment, I and my brother or sister have moved away into different worlds, and there is no language we can share.... It is in the middle of intimacy that the reality of loneliness most dramatically appears.

The real purveyors of the news are artists, for artists are the ones who infuse fact with perception, emotion, and appreciation...We are beginning to realize that emotions and imagination are more potent in shaping public sentiment and opinion than information and reason.

Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship.

We are aching to come together and I think it has little to do with liberal or conservative discourse. I think it has to do with increasing disconnection with what is real and soul-serving.

I think "artistic" simply means there's more of the creator in the thing. Whether it's painting or song or movie or game, the creator puts more of themselves into the piece, so when the audience see it, they feel something real, they feel something human, they feel something that's like a person.

It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

I think my work comes out of both an intense desire for connection and what it means to feel isolated. There's always going to be a kind of tidal movement back and forth between the two.

The twentieth-century artist who uses symbols is alienated because the system of symbols is a private one. After you have dealt with the symbols you are still private, you are still lonely, because you are not sure anyone will understand it except yourself. The ransom of privacy is that you are alone.

Success definitely brings on loneliness. People think you're lucky, that you have everything. They think you can go anywhere and do anything, but that's not the point. One hungers for the basic stuff.

I feel I must live alone, alone, alone - with artists only to touch the door. Every artist cuts off his ear and nails it on the outside of the door for the others to shout into.

If there is any reason to single out artists as being more necessary to our lives than any others, it is because they provide us with light that cannot be extinguished. They go into dark rooms and poke at their souls until the contours of our own are familiar to us.

Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.

artists ... all have a need that cannot be met by another human being.

A writer is essentially a man who does not resign himself to loneliness.

A real artist may create his picture in a lonely desert... gods look over his shoulder; he creates in their company. What does he care whether or not anybody admires his picture?

The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. There is not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not despise.