loneliness

. . . clumsiness is often mated with a love of solitude.

Jamie enjoyed solitude, but loneliness was a constant ache.

Loneliness watches and sights, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over... himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He__ going to make me sleep with him again tonight, i just know it.

The thing is, being lonely is like walking in the cold without a coat. It__ uncomfortable, but eventually you go numb. Once you get used to not being lonely, though, the shock of going back is like having your down comforter yanked off at six o__lock on a Minnesota December morning.

No I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be Am an attendant lord one that will do To swell a progress start a scene or two Advise the prince no doubt an easy tool Deferential glad to be of use Politic cautious and meticulous Full of high sentence but a bit obtuse At times indeed almost ridiculous_ Almost at times the Fool. I grow old _ I grow old _ I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind Do I dare to eat a peach I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us and we drown.

From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were - I have not seenAs others saw - I could not bringMy passions from a common spring -

When you are young, you think it's going to be solved by love. But it never is. Being close -- as close as you can get -- to another person only makes clear that impassable distance between you."[_]"I don't know. If being in love only made people more lonely, why would everyone want it so much?""Because of the illusion. You fall in love, it's intoxicating, and for a little while you feel like you've actually become one with the other person. Merged souls, and so on. You thing you'll never be lonely again. Only it doesn't last and soon you realize you can only get so close, and you end up brutally disappointed, more alone that ever, because the illusion - the hope you'd held on to all those years - has been shattered." [_] "But see, the incredible thing about people is that we forget." Ray continued. "Time passes and somehow the hope creeps back and sooner or later someone else comes along and we think this is the one. And the whole thing starts all over again. We go through our lives like that, and either we just accept the lesser relationship - it may not be total understanding, but it's pretty good - or we keep trying for that perfect union, trying and failing, leaving behind us a trail of broken hearts, our own included. In the end, we die as alone as we were born, having struggled to understand others, to make ourselves understood, but having failed in what we once imagined was possible.

To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?_There is nobody__ere among these grey arches, and moaning pigeons, and cheerful games and tradition and emulation, all so skilfully organised to prevent feeling alone.

Ivanov: No, my clever young thing, it's not a question of romance. I say as before God that I will endure everything - depression and mental illness and ruin and the loss of my wife and premature old age and loneliness - but I cannot tolerate, cannot endure being ridiculous in my own eyes. I'm dying of shame at the thought that I, a healthy, strong man, have turned into some sort of Hamlet or Manfred, some sort of 'superfluous man'... devil knows precisely what! There are pitiful people who are flattered by being called Hamlet or superfluous men, but for me it's a disgrace! It stirs up my pride, I'm overcome by shame and I suffer...

Lucian was beginning to get used to hearing her small observations at night. More than anything, he realized he liked her voice in the dark. It made him feel less lonely.

If only I had something to take the edge off the loneliness. If only lonely were a more accurate word. It should sound much less pretty.

She imagined herself as some sort of vessel to be filled up with love. But it wasn't like that. The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away.

For my part, I think that the mystery is always greatest where there is the most - emptiness.

There is no living being on earth at this moment except myself. I could walk down the halls, and empty rooms would yawn mockingly at me from every side. God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of 'parties' with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter _ they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship _ but the loneliness of the soul in it's appalling self-consciousness, is horrible and overpowering.

Lonely people have enthusiasms which cannot always be explained. When something strikes them as funny, the intensity and length of their laughter mirrors the depth of their loneliness, and they are capable of laughing like hyenas. When something touches their emotions, it runs through them like Paul Revere, awakening feelings that gather into great armies.

You do not have to be alone. The world never inflicts loneliness upon us. That is something we choose or reject by ourselves.

[A]t bottom, and just in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone, and for one person to be able to advise or even help another, a lot must happen, a lot must go well, a whole constellation of things must come right in order once to succeed.

It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there. And somehow, there was a disturbing comfort in that, and, despite myself, I__ envision his face.