Quotes about Solitude

Mad raging sunsets poured in seafoams of cloud through unimaginable crags, with every rose tint of hope beyond, I felt just like it, brilliant and bleak beyond words. Everywhere awful ice fields and snow straws; one blade of grass jiggling in the winds of infinity, anchored to a rock. To the East, it was gray; to the north, awful; to the west, raging mad, hard iron fools wrestling in the groomian gloom; to the south, my father's mist.

Sometimes I'd yell questions at the rocks and trees, and across gorges, or yodel - What is the meaning of the void? The answer was perfect silence, so I knew.

As I was hiking down the mountain with my pack I turned and I knelt on the trail and said Thank you, shack. The I added Blah with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would know what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world

Beat doesn't mean tired or bushed, so much as it means beato, the Italian for beatific: to be in a state of beatitude, like St. Francis, trying to love all life, trying to be utterly sincere with everyone, practicing endurance, kindness, cultivating joy of heart. How can this be done in our mad modern world of multiplicities and millions? By practicing a little solitude, going off by yourself once in a while to store up that most precious of goals: the vibrations of sincerity.

With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.

Roaring dreams take place in a perfectly silent mind. Now that we know this, throw the raft away.

I had to learn - since I'm divorced now and everyone is like, 'Oh my God, you're single, what's going on?' - that if I don't like to spend time with myself, how can I ask someone else to enjoy spending time with me? I'm getting to learn how to enjoy my solitude and have a good time.

A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues?

Only the desert has a fascination--to ride alone--in the sun in the forever unpossessed country--away from man. That is a great temptation.

For one thing, I was no longer alone; a man is never alone with the wind-and the boat made three.

The man who is content to live alone is either a beast or a god.

In fact, in order that we may never know ourselves, we hate silence and solitariness. Lest our conscience should carry on with us an unbearable repartee, we drown out its voice in amusements, distractions, and noise. If we met ourselves in others, we would hate them.