Elif Safak Quotes

Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

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

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

Getting close to books, and spending time by myself, I was obliged to think about things I would never have thought about if I was busy romping around with a brother and sister.

I need, absolutely, to be alone.

A great reader seldom recognizes his solitude.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

I happen to be pretty productive when I am in jail. When you are in jail, you have to spend more time with yourself.

I had friends but I was spending a great deal of my time alone and for me that was vital because there's an awful lot you learn about yourself when you're alone.

By nature, I sit alone in a room and type... My goal was never celebrity.

Writing is an antidote for loneliness.

Census figures be damned: If you choose to be alone, you're destined to spend a certain amount of time wondering why.

When everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

I had a lot of alone time with no brothers or sisters running around, or anything. I would just sit and imagine things, all the time.

I kind of crave loneliness.

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

My EP, 'Room 93,' was all about isolation - it was based on the idea of being in a hotel room and being totally alone with yourself or that other person.

I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it's good for me.

Much of the time I'm an introvert, by choice spending a lot of time on my own. I suppose liking my solitude is part of a writer's sensibility.

Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.

It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.

So it is necessary that we should learn to be alone.