Gene Wolfe Quotes

Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I'm most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.

If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in poor company.

Only solitary men know the full joys of frienship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.

Solitude is pleasant. Loneliness is not.

The interesting thing is why we're so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness.

Remember that although the distinction can be difficult to draw, loneliness and solitude are different.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

One major challenge within happiness is loneliness. The more I've learned about happiness, the more I've come to believe that loneliness is a terrible, common, and important obstacle to consider.

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.

Anyone would be lying if they said they didn't get lonely at times.

Even if you're independent, I think you get lonely.

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

Going through life solo isn't very exciting if you can't share it with somebody, you know?

Solitude is not the same as loneliness. Solitude is a solitary boat floating in a sea of possible companions.

For me, I value connection a lot, talking to people and connecting. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy having my own time, but I think it's really important to have that connection, so living on Mars would be a struggle for me.

We can all understand that feeling of being alone in the world trying to find ways to not be alone.

I could be imagining it, but I believe myself to have exchanged sly, understanding nods with other people I see attending movies alone on Christmas Day.

Far from 'rotting my brain,' as I was often told would happen, TV helped me feel less alone at a time when I spent so much time alone.

I have always been very interested in the idea of loneliness and the presumption that romantic relationships are supposed to rid you of that.

Everyone's been lonely at some point and in need of a friend.

After a certain age, you felt a need not to be alone. It grew stronger, like a radio frequency, until finally it was so powerful that you were forced to do something about it.

being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.

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.

The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices—after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people's.

Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.