Quotes About Being Alone Without You

“I would like to write you so simply, so simply, so simply. Without having anything ever catch the eye, excepting yours alone, ... so that above all the language remains self-evidently secret, as if it were being invented at every step, and as if it were burning immediately”

— Jacques Derrida

“There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.”

— Tiffanie DeBartolo

“Maybe PTSD really is triggered by a single incident, a stressor, as it's known in the psychiatric community, and maybe the attack at Al-Waleed was that stressor for me, but as I have learned in the intervening years, I was not damaged by that moment alone. In fact, while there are specific memories that resurface with some frequency, like the suicide bomber in Sinjar or the order riot at Al-Waleed, I find myself most traumatized by the overall experience of being in a combat zone like Iraq, where you are always surrounded by war but rarely aware of when or how violence will arrive. Like so many of my fellow veterans, I understand now how that it is the daily adrenaline rush of a war without front lines or uniforms, rather than the infrequent bursts of bloody violence, that ultimately damages the modern warrior's mind.”

— Luis Carlos Montalvan

“Dare to be different. Dare to accept yourself for who YOU are. Dare to live your life without limits. Dare to follow YOUR dreams. Dare to explore, experience, and make mistakes. Dare to live your life without being afraid. Live, learn, and grow. It's your life! Make every decision that you make count for something. Always know your value as a person and don't allow anybody to make you feel anything different. You may have to stand alone at times, but don't be dismayed. There's something special about you! Allow yourself to shine and dare to do the unknown.”

— Stephanie Lahart

“One advantage to being a despised species is that you have freedom, freedom to be any crazy thing you want. If you listen to a group of housewives talk, you'll hear a lot of nonsense, some of it really crazy. This comes, I think, from being alone so much, and pursuing your own odd train of thought without impediment, which some call discipline. The result is craziness, but also brilliance. Ordinary women come out with the damnedest truth. You ignore them at your own risk. And they are permitted to go on making wild statements without being put in one kind of jail or another (some of them, anyway) because everyone knows they're crazy and powerless too. If a woman is religious or earthy, passive or wildly assertive, loving or hating, she doesn't get much more flak than if she isn't: her choices lie between being castigated as a ball and chain or as a whore.”

— Marilyn French

“So I kept reading, just to stay alive. In fact, I'd read two or three books at the same time, so I wouldn't finish one without being in the middle of another
anything to stop me from falling into the big, gaping void. You see, books fill the empty spaces. If I'm waiting for a bus, or am eating alone, I can always rely on a book to keep me company. Sometimes I think I like them even more than people. People will let you down in life. They'll disappoint you and hurt you and betray you. But not books. They're better than life.”

— Marc Acito

“I'm by myself," she said finally. "No family to speak of."
"I see." Leaning forward again, he rested his arms against the table. "That must be rather difficult."
"Sometimes."
"And lonely, I imagine. Perhaps that is why you came here tonight?"
Her jaw popped under the strain of maintaining decorum. "First: I said I was alone, not lonely. There's a big difference. And second: is that really why you think I'm here?"
"I do not know what to think. I know you must have reasons for being here other than what you have already hinted at. Reasons important enough to make an otherwise intelligent woman not only bring food to a stranger so late at night, but also accept his invitation to sit inside an empty motel room without a second thought."
"Why don't you just call me a hooker while you're at it?”

— Angela B. Wade

“I don't want to go back to the way I fucking was. I don't want to go back to being alone and having to be nothing but a weapon. I don't want to pretend that I don't
" [Sin] stopped again and realized with a vague sense of humiliation that he was about to display the ultimate form of human weakness. "I can't do it without you," he grit out. "I won't.”

— Santino Hassell

“I should've fought for you. Instead, I spent a long time blocking out every emotion I felt for you. And when I finally stopped being hurt and confused and headstrong, when I started to let feeling back in ... six years had passed and I was alone, on the other side of the world, without the only person I'd ever wanted standing by my side.”

— Julie Johnson

“If you follow the crowd, you will likely get no further than the crowd. If you walk alone, you're likely to end up in places no one has ever been before. Being an achiever is not
without its difficulties, for peculiarity breeds contempt. The unfortunate thing about being ahead of your time is that when people finally realize you were right, they'll simply say it was obvious to everyone all along. You have two choices in life. You can dissolve into the main stream, or you can choose to become an achiever and be distinct. To be distinct, you must be different. To be different, you must strive to be what no else but you can be.”

— Alan Ashley-Pitt

“Men are indeed wretched ... Everything beautiful happens without them. Cholera and catchwords are what they make. The foam with jealousy or die of boredom, which comes down to the same thing, if they're not allowed to interfere. And whenever they do interfere, there's a premium on hypocrisy and raving. One need only be up here o in the wilderness that I rode through the other day, to realize where the true battles lie, to become very particular about the victories one strives for. In short, to cease being content with little. As soon as you're alone, things lay hold of you by themselves and always force you to take the roads that are hardest to climb. And even if you don't get there, what fine views you have, and how reassuring everything is.”

— Jean Giono

“So this was betrayal. It was like being left alone in the desert at dusk without water or warmth. It left your mouth dry and will broken. It sapped your tears and made you hollow.”

— Anna Godbersen

“Being alone is easier than having a family. When you have a family, you are responsible to each other. It's easier to navigate the world without that burden.”

— Zachary Jernigan

“She wanted to ask about the McCaffreys' children, but the question seemed too personal. Westerners were private sorts, in Evangeline's judgment, with more than their share of secrets. "It scares me a little," she confessed. "The idea of being so alone, I mean."
June-bug favored her with another smile. "Bein' alone ain't necessarily bad, you know. A person can come to understand herself real well that way. Some folks pass their whole lives without learnin' a thing about their own minds and spirits, but out here, all you've got to do is pay attention.”

— Linda Lael Miller

“There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.”

— Kahlil Gibran

“Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. Your will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways. Silence also brings Sabbath to you. It completes solitude, for without it you cannot be alone. Far from being a mere absence, silence allows the reality of God to stand in the midst of your life. God does not ordinarily compete for our attention. In silence we come to attend. Lastly, fasting is done that we many consciously experience the direct sustenance of God to our body and our whole person.”

— Dallas Willard

“A passenger isn't supposed to concern himself with the running of the ship; that is being taken care of by the crew, anonymous creatures down in the engine-room or up on deck, whom he never meets. But, in this case, I wasn't really a passenger. I was like a lazy or scared or drunken captain lying shut in his cabin when he ought to be on the bridge, giving orders. Sooner or later, I would have to come out and assume command and decide where we were going.
But not yet, I told the crew. You don't need me yet. Can't you see I'm sick? You're doing all right without me. Sure, I'll come, when we get near land. Just let me lie here a little longer. Leave me alone, can't you? Let me sleep.”

— Christopher Isherwood

“Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person's heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you”

— Elif Shafak

“You see," said Colon, "thieves are organized here. I mean, it's official. They're allowed a certain amount of thieving. Not that they do much these days, mind you. If you pay them a little premium every year they give you a card and leave you alone. Saves time and effort all around."
"And all thieves are members?" said Angua.
"Oh, yes," said Carrot. "Can't go thieving in Ankh-Morpork without a Guild permit. Not unless you've got a special talent."
"Why? What happens? What talent?" she said.
"Well, being able to survive being hung upside down from one of the gates with your ears nailed to your knees," said Carrot.”

— Terry Pratchett

“Learn to live without self-concern. For this you must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.”

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Your young, sitting back thinking about your future, you feel heavily in your heart your desire to create your dream; no matter the tasks set before you. You hold that feeling; close to you, and you age. Your told to grow up, get a job and become successful in ways that will make someone else proud, whilst ignoring the ache inside yourself. Truth is, we're all raised to conform; damn it our parents were raised to conform, but does that mean you have to, too? No, than unravel that long lost dream inside yourself and start to create a life from it, you'll walk alone for a while, you will break down every comfort zone you've ever known; slowly transforming into a being without one, and you know what..? even if it's going to be hard, possibly some of the greatest hurdles of your time; one thing will feel certain- you'll never have felt so empowered in all your life.”

— Nikki Rowe

“Can you be alone without being lonely? Can you spend time by yourself without craving noise or company of other people? Have you discovered the glory of quiet time spent alone, time spent listening to your soul? Solitude brings with it gifts that come from nowhere else.”

— Steve Goodier

“The difference we wanna make is number one to let these kids know that they're not alone, that they're actually not that messed up and that they can do whatever they want; they can express themselves however they want, without being persecuted or called a faggot or some kind of racist thing. You know, really just to get people to get over their stuff so they can live.”

— Gerard Way

“But I can be alone without Yoko, but I just have no wish to be. There's no reason on earth why I should be alone without Yoko. There's nothing more important than our relationship, nothing. And we dig being together all the time. Both of us could survive apart but what for? I'm not going to sacrifice love, real love for any whore or any friend or any business, because in the end you're alone at night and neither of us want to be. And you can't fill a bed with groupies. It doesn't work. I don't want to be a swinger. I've been through it all and nothing works better than to have someone you love hold you.”

— John Lennon

“I think more and more people want to live alone. You can be a couple without being in each other's pockets. I don't see why you have to share the same bathroom.”

— Jeanne Moreau

“Yet I'm sure there's something more to be read in a man. People dare not
they dare not turn the page. The laws of mimicry
I call them the laws of fear. People are afraid to find themselves alone, and don't find themselves at all. I hate this moral agoraphobia
it's the worst kind of cowardice. You can't create something without being alone. But who's trying to create here? What seems different in yourself: that's the one rare thing you possess, the one thing which gives each of us his worth; and that's just what we try to suppress. We imitate. And we claim to love life.”

— André Gide

“You realize I had half my guard out searching for you?" Eddard Stark said when they were alone. "Septa Mordane is beside herself with fear. She's in the sept praying for your safe return. Arya, you know you are never to go beyond the castle gates without my leave."
"I didn't go out the gates," she blurted. "Well, I didn't mean to. I was down in the dungeons, only they turned into this tunnel. It was all dark, and I didn't have a torch or a candle to see by, so I had to follow. I couldn't go back the way I came on account of the monsters. Father, they were talking about killing you! Not the monsters, the two men. They didn't see me, I was being still as stone and quiet as a shadow, but I heard them. They said you had a book and a bastard and if one Hand could die, why not a second? Is that the book? Jon's the bastard, I bet.”

— George R.R. Martin

“The summer I was ten years old, there was a group of kids in my neighborhood who played together every night after dinner. I often watched them from my window ... Every night around nine-thirty or ten, those kids would get called in one by one ... I knew the first ones called were full of resentment. But they needn't have been. Nothing ever happened after they left anyway. Things just sort of ended in a slow motion way, like petals falling off a flower. You couldn't have people leave like that and have anything good happen afterward. Whoever was left couldn't pay much attention to anything other than waiting for their turn to get called in. So, it wasn't so bad to go first, to head back toward those deep yellow lights and beds made up with summer linens. It was much better than being last, when you would be left standing there alone, finally going in without anybody calling you.”

— Elizabeth Berg

“Can't you ... I don't know. Find a hobby or something?"
"Being charming is my hobby," said Adrian obstinately. "I'm the life of the party- even without drinking. I wasn't meant to be alone.”

— Richelle Mead

“Most people understand on some level that there are a lot of surveillance cameras out there, but very few people really get it. There are forty million surveillance cameras in the United States alone and the number keeps growing. You never go through a day without being recorded.”

— Harlan Coben

“You do many things at once; you read, listen to the radio, talk, smoke, eat, drink. You are the consumer with the open mouth, eager and ready to swallow everything-pictures, liquor, knowledge. This lack of concentration is clearly shown in our difficulty in being alone with ourselves. To sit still, without talking, smoking, reading, drinking, is impossible for most people. They become nervous and fidgety, and must do something with their mouth or their hands.”

— Erich Fromm

“Go, even though you love him.
Go, even though he is kind and faithful and dear to you.
Go, even though he's your best friend and you're his.
Go, even though you can't imagine your life without him.
Go, even though he adores you and your leaving will devastate him.
Go, even though your friends will be disappointed or surprised or pissed off or all three.
Go, even though you once said you would stay.
Go, even though you're afraid of being alone.
Go, even though you're sure no one will ever love you as well as he does.
Go, even though there is nowhere to go.
Go, even though you don't know exactly why you can't stay.
Go, because you want to.
Because wanting to leave is enough.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“You can stay on the porch. Like how you left me on the floor outside our room."
"I didn't know what else to do. You found the check, and I panicked."
"That isn't an excuse."
"I know. And I'm not saying that this is going to make up for it. I'm going to try, really try, to make you trust me again. I want you to trust me. I just ... I couldn't sleep last night without you. It was the strangest thing, being in the room alone without you. I couldn't hear you breathing, and your laughter was gone and you were gone, and it was like a part of my life was missing. A big part. I tripped going to the bathroom and banged my head. See?" He pointed to a lovely gash on his forehead.
"And then I burned my hand on the toaster oven. And then my car wouldn't start. Again. I've never had such bad luck in my life.”

— Chelsea M. Cameron

“From lips indifferent of her death I heard,
Indifferently I listened to it, too,'
were echoing in my heart. O youth, youth! little dost thou care for anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the universe-even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, 'I alone am living-look you!'-but thy days fly by all the while, and vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes, like wax in the sun, like snow ... . And, perhaps, the whole secret of thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able to think thou wilt do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the winds, forces which thou couldst not make other use of; in each of us gravely regarding himself as a prodigal, gravely supposing that he is justified in saying, 'Oh, what might I not have done if I had not wasted my time!”

— Ivan Turgenev

“My solo travels in Paris have brought many perfect hours of being alone but not a moment of loneliness. People who depend on other people are often in hiding from themselves. Two and a quarter million people live in the City of Light: you will see many of them and you will pass them in the street, but when you see Notre Dame after dark and walk home and perhaps stop to have a drink in the Marais, you can feel that the only thing that is missing from your experience is the common dependence on someone to distract your attention. You are living without it: you are on vacation.”

— Andrew O'Hagan

“We are Adam and Eve born out of chaos called creation Ribbing me gave you life yet you forget there will always be a part of me in you yes I taunted and tempted you with my forbidden fruit does that make me the serpent too? Believe what you will but if I am exiled alone I know we will be together again someday naked without shame in paradise My thanks to you for being in on my sin”

— Megan McCafferty

“If you want to be happy, learn to be alone without being lonely. Learn that being alone does not mean being unhappy. The world is full of plenty of interesting and enjoyable things to do and people who can enrich your life.”

— Michael Josephson

“Terrified of being alone, yet afraid of intimacy, we experience widespread feelings of emptiness, of disconnection, of the unreality of self. And here the computer, a companion without emotional demands, offers a compromise. You can be a loner, but never alone. You can interact, but need never feel vulnerable to another person.”

— Sherry Turkle

“To be alone by being part of the universe-fitting in completely to an environment of woods and silence and peace. Everything you do becomes a unity and a prayer. Unity within and without.”

— Thomas Merton

“I used to do fight sequences, and I started to get self-conscious about fight sequences, because invariably the other person would get hurt, and you never want anyone to be hurt on a film, let alone you being responsible. The great thing about working with guys who have spent their life choreographing fights for wrestling is that that's what they do. That's their specialty. Their specialty is selling taking hits. Their specialty is selling explosive hits without making a contact or doing too much damage.”

— Vin Diesel

“Morning night and noon the traffic moves through and the murder and treachery of friends and lovers and all the people move through you. pain is the joy of knowing the unkindest truth that arrives without warning. life is being alone death is being alone. even the fools weep morning night and noon.”

— Charles Bukowski

“Telling the truth. I finally have that with my boyfriend, and that makes me vulnerable constantly. Without vulnerability, you're not really alive. Your vulnerability is your power. Sitting in your house alone, breathing through it. Calling a friend when you need to cry. Being really honest in your therapist's office. Whatever it is. Bringing it into a role, for me. It is your power.”

— Daphne Zuniga