It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who "every one" was. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances? I was acquainted with all Petersburg as it was.
I endeavored to renounce society, that I might avoid temptation. But it was a poor religion; so far as it prevailed, only tended to make me gloomy, stupid, unsociable, and useless.
Everyday brought me further away from other people, I had been placed out of the world's sight, as if in a cupboard, and I hoped it would stay that way. I developed a yearning for being alone, unkempt, untended.
After 'Traffic,' I was a total homebody. I was still a kid.
My misfortune is doubly painful to me because it will result in my being misunderstood. For me there can be no recreation in the company of others, no intelligent conversation, no exchange of information with peers; only the most pressing needs can make me venture into society. I am obliged to live like an outcast.
I can't think of any poet-recluses outside of one dead Jeffers. [Robinson Jeffers] The rest of them want to slobber over each other and hug each other. It appears to me that I am the last of the poet-recluses.
You should make no effort to try to join society, stay right where you are. Give your name and serial number and wait for society to come to you.
Solitude, the sly enemy that doth separate a man from well-doing.
He whom God hath gifted with a love of retirement possesses, as it were, an extra sense.
A fine line separates the weary recluse from the fearful hermit. Finer still is the line between hermit and bitter misanthrope.
When I was working, and when I was making substantial amounts of money, I always filed and paid my taxes. This only stopped, when it was necessary to withdraw from society, in order to guarantee the safety and well-being of myself and my family.
To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
I didn't party. I didn't go out. I didn't really hang out with friends as much as other guys.
There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.
A hermit is one who renounces the world of fragments that he may enjoy the world wholly and without interruption.
I would be at home reading, because I felt so disconnected from humanity.
My Dad used to say that the balance of the world relied on all of the monks who were living outside of society in creative isolation. I don't quite understand the ascetic life or the private life or the monastic private life. But I definitely understand privacy's value.
Big Brother' has put me off people. I thought, 'I'm gonna get a dog.' I really think I'm going to become more reclusive. It was nothing like I expected. I was so naive about it.
By drop out, I mean to detach yourself from involvement in secular, external social games.
