Stephen Spender Quotes

We don't function well as human beings when we're in isolation.

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.

If we don't have each other, we go crazy with loneliness. When we do, we go crazy with togetherness.

Social connection is such a basic feature of human experience that when we are deprived of it, we suffer.

Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.

I can go days without meaningful human interaction.

I don't have friends, I have thousands of acquaintances. No friends. I figured I had a wife and children.

I am a super social person. I'm an only child, so I thrive on social settings and being around my friends because I make them my siblings. When I'm not acting or singing or working on anything, I am making new relationships with people because, to me, my friendships are very important.

The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.

She was built for crowds. She has never come any closer to life than the dinner table.

Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.

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.

Much unhappiness comes from walking alone. When there are several, it's somewhat different. I must get into the habit of listening to others, for what the others say concerns me, too.

Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.

I live with the people I create and it has always made my essential loneliness less keen.

It's not like I'm starved for company - I have a few very good lady friends - but there's only a certain amount of times a woman wants to see you and never go out for dinner.

It is quite hard to relax in London. I always say I'd move somewhere quieter, but I am a bit of a confirmed urbanite now - it crept up on me without me noticing. I always think that I function quite well on my own, unusually so, but then I'm reminded how important people are to me.

Friends are very important to me, and I have always had many of them. There are probably many reasons why this is so, but two seem to me more valid than any of the others I am a naturally friendly person, and I hate to be alone.

Isolation is the worst possible counselor.

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

I can't be alone.

Music is supposed to make you less lonely - that's the whole idea.

When I was a child, there's one thing I said: 'I never want to be alone.' That's what I would say. I don't want to be alone.

Of course I'd like someone in my life. And of course, when I go home in the evening, I wish there was someone waiting for me. But very honestly, I don't have time to be lonely. My work fills up most of my day, and when I get home, I just want to sleep.

To film with our family is awesome - you have to hang out with each other, and I love that because I hate being alone.