William Butler Yeats Quotes

Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known... then went crazy as a loon." Lisa Simpson

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

Creating is a lonely thing in a lot of ways.

Solitude begets whimsies.

Writing is a tribute to solitude. It is choosing introversion over extroversion, lonely hours/days/weeks/years over fun and sociability.

I used to be locked up in my bedroom for hours, just listening to music, making some of my own, doodling and writing poetry.

Poetry is engendered in solitude, so what better meter for it than the clip of a buckskin horse?

Some degree of withdrawal serves to nurture man's creative powers. The artist and the scientist bring out of the dark void, like the mysterious universe itself, the unique, the strange, the unexpected. Numerous observers have testified upon the loneliness of the process.

Birth is the start of loneliness and loneliness the start of poetry.

Girls, there are poets who learn from you to say, what you, in your aloneness, are; and they learn through you to live distantness, as the evenings through the great stars become accustomed to eternity.

People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.

Eventually, we all end up alone.

I do say all I've ever written about is being alone. And most people take that as, 'Oh, that's so sad.' And I always say, 'No. No, all I ever write about is being alone, and sometimes that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.'

I need my time to be lonely.

I kind of crave loneliness.

I make a genuine distinction between loneliness and aloneness. I know what each is like. There are times I'm lonely. But there are also many times when I need to be alone, when I don't want the feeling of someone else in the house other than the cats.

I played a lot of dress-up in my room. I really liked being alone. I had a lot of friends, but I had an only-child, live-in-my-head personality.

It's a cliche, but true, that writing is intensely solitary and at times really lonely. I sit in one room and talk to squirrels and blue jays all day.

One of the odd enjoyments in life is to be alone in a room full of people. To have them there as unknowing human filler in your wide shot.

Nobody knows me.

I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are... not that the knowledge is inevitably rewarding.

I was lonely as a kid. Since I had no siblings, I spent a lot of time by myself and a lot of time reading.

I feel like artists, as much as we'd like to think we're communal, are pretty much loners.

When a man is extremely lonely, he starts discovering himself.

When I got into music, that was another way to be by myself.