Friendship, according to Proust, is the negation of that irremediable solitude to which every human being is condemned.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up. ~Pearl Buck

How would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said.I don't guess you would know it. You'd just be it.

I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said 'I want to be let alone!' There is all the difference.

Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.

La présence des autres affadit le monde. La solitude est cette conquête qui vous rend jouissance des choses.

Still, Luce held firm to the belief that quiet and solitude were good for you, offering peace, or at least hope for peace.

Mais elle est ainsi, vivant en elle-même, voyant de la beauté où d'autres n'en trouvent point.

Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.

In a cool solitude of treesWhere leaves and birds a music spin,Mind that was weary is at ease,New rhythms in the soul begin.

Septimus has been working too hard" - that was all she could say to her own mother. To love makes one solitary, she thought.

To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.

Da ich nun einmal nicht imstande war, die Menschen vernünftiger zu machen, war ich lieber fern von ihnen glücklich.

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.

Long have I dwelt forgotten hereIn pining woe and dull despair;This place of solitude and gloomMust be my dungeon and my tomb.