Top 111 Solitary Quotes

The power of a book lies in its power to turn a solitary act into a shared vision. As long as we have books, we are not alone.

A man, to read, must read alone. He may make extracts, he may work at books in company; but to read, to absorb, he must be solitary.

I had become shy of life’s bustle in my solitary retreat and was apprehensive at the thought of facing the world.

Solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any human being, no matter what his crime. Hardened criminals in the men’s prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead.

You start to forget about the world outside – it’s not relevant or relatable anymore. The darkest part of solitary confinement is that you start to forget about cars and jobs and families and weather and politicians – and all the things that make up a society.

When you screen a film like ‘The Missing Picture,’ it is not like watching TV. Watching TV is very solitary. When you watch cinema, you watch it together, and you talk about it after the screening.

I’m perceived to be this solitary character, but nothing could be further from the truth.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

If you’re living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you.

Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.

I always thought of deer as solitary animals that weren’t very interesting. But my goodness, that was very wrong. The big eye-opener for me was that they’re social. They have family groups.

I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.

Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.

The most solitary I ever felt was when I was living in New York. I used to live in Enrico Caruso’s old apartment, and I had a special staircase that took me up to the roof. There was nobody up there.

I’m better suited to be a director, I think. I see myself as the general author. I hate the word ‘auteur,’ because it sounds so solitary when filmmaking is anything but solitary.

It seems there is no area in our culture that is not touched, changed, even swallowed by the Internet. It’s both medium and message, mass and personal, social and solitary.

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.

Shortly after arriving at a makeshift military jail at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in May 2010, I was placed into the black hole of solitary confinement for the first time.

There’s definitely a solitary aspect to not having a band, and there are times when I wish that I did.

The temple of Ceres should be in a solitary spot out of the city, to which the public are not necessarily led but for the purpose of sacrificing to her.

At 10, I heard Neil Diamond‘s ‘Solitary Man’ and it moved me so deeply I stood, frozen in place during school recess, feeling such empathy for the narrator in Diamond’s masterpiece that my heart was smashed.

Well, I’m a runner, and I have to run with Secret Service – even though they can run twice as fast. It took me a while to get used to running with them, because I love the solitary aspect of it. So I have two rules. First, I can’t hear their feet. And second, I can’t see their shadows.

We were now arrived at the close of our solitary journeyings along the St. Joseph‘s trail.

I think there are a lot of really positive aspects to social media for novelists. Even though our work is pretty solitary, through Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and Instagram and blogging in general, we’re better able to connect directly with readers.

Painting and writing are solitary arts.

I regretted the solitary nature of the writer’s life – other people, normal working people, spent their days with co-workers, rode the subway home with a crowd, walked through thronged streets. I worked at home, all by myself.

As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave… walking the plank… willingly… It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful.

It’s taken me a long time to work out what people are thinking and what they’re expecting. I am naturally solitary, and I’m comfortable with that.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

Writing is a solitary existence. Making a movie is controlled chaos – thousands of moving parts and people. Every decision is a compromise. If you’re writing and you don’t like how your character looks or talks, you just fix it. But in a movie, if there’s something you don’t like, that’s tough.

Online is such a brilliant, brilliant way to connect with young readers – even if they just want to tweet, ‘Hey, I read your book!’ – that, absolutely, I connect with that. But I also treat writing as solitary and keep it to myself as long as I can.

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

I like to write about the solitary things people do. Humans seem to function best when they’re alone.

A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man.

I like the idea of being a sculptor. Just me alone, making something – that solitary existence.

Growing up in Chadds Ford, Pa., I shuttled between studio space in my parents‘ house and my grandfather‘s studio just up the hill. It was a solitary childhood, but I loved it.

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.

I will say that my days are spent solitary and somewhat lost in thought, and every single time I inadvertently wear my shirt inside out in public, I bump into my sister-in-law at the grocery store.

We as humans, we’re not solitary people, we’re like dogs, we like to live in packs and know about one another. And, if anything, fame is people trying to attain community on a mass scale, because when you become famous wherever you go people know about what you’ve done and what you’re about to do.

True solidarity is only possible among the solitary.

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

Writing a sitcom compared with writing a novel is a bit like the difference between going on a big, noisy group holiday compared with a solitary march to the South Pole.

I think there’s something beautifully old fashioned about waiting all week then sitting down and watching something on television together. I’m generation box set, accustomed to binging on multiple episodes at a time, which is fun but quite a solitary pursuit because you do it alone.

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual – for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, but not a lonely one. When you write, your world is populated by the characters you invent, and you feel those people filling your life.

Writing, by nature, is a fairly solitary occupation.

Magic‘s quite a solitary pursuit – a thing you can do for hours and hours, getting better and better.

The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.

Increasingly I think of myself as some strange and solitary conductor, introduced to a group of very dynamic musicians who happen to be my characters, and I have no idea how they are going to play together, and I have certainly no idea how I am going to put manners on them.

A solitary child growing up in Africa, you’re really quite dependent on books.

There is a heavy-ego, solitary model of being an elected leader. We’ve certainly seen that in some other mayors of this city… I have much more of a Movement mentality. It’s much more of what I’m steeped in. I don’t think it is first and foremost about me. It’s about the ideas and the agenda.

I’m quite a solitary person. I like being on my own.

I was fairly solitary. I didn’t like structured learning. People didn’t seem to be my cup of tea.

There’s something about the water – that solitary kind of peaceful feeling. You’re on Earth but not quite.

I like stand-up. But I’d also like a family and house and a yard. I want to work with a lot of people, have colleagues; and on good film sets, there’s people there that work with the same people for years and years. I love that collaborative spirit in that medium. Comedy is a lot more solitary.

Human beings are born solitary, but everywhere they are in chains – daisy chains – of interactivity. Social actions are makeshift forms, often courageous, sometimes ridiculous, always strange. And in a way, every social action is a negotiation, a compromise between ‘his,’ ‘her’ or ‘their’ wish and yours.

I was quite solitary for ‘Hitman.’ I was quite apart. He struck me as a very sad individual. There was a mournful quality there.

Writing a novel is solitary, but I don’t mind that.

Photography is usually viewed as a solitary activity, but the truth of the matter is that people love to shoot together, compare notes, and just have fun with photography.

Few occupations pass the solitary hours more fruitfully than the playing of a musical instrument.

My two bits here are that writing is a solitary job but there are times when one needs to discuss the work, and see what’s working and what’s not.

‘The Creative Habit‘ is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. ‘The Collaborative Habit’ is obviously about surviving with other people.

I’m not, by nature, a collaborator. My biggest influences were people like painters and poets. These are solitary workers.

Solitude is not the same as loneliness. Solitude is a solitary boat floating in a sea of possible companions.

Writing is a solitary profession; you are really alone when you write. Then the emotions become well shaped and distinct. But their transition into words must be done deliberately and with rigid artistry.

They put me in solitary confinement, and although I went on to do 8,755 days of solitary in total, the first two were the hardest. I almost went mad, beating my head against the wall.

To me there is no more depressing sight than a five-year-old staring at a screen, unsmiling, mouse in hand. Besides whatever dreadful things this prolonged exposure to screens is doing to their brains, computer games tend to be solitary affairs, and produce little laughter.

The first thing I tell women is this: They think that coding or being in any computer field is very solitary, very solemn, that you’re just set off in a cubicle somewhere and it’s not social and it’s not creative. I would tell them that it’s the furthest from the truth.

It’s an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That’s always been a tug of war for me.

We are, first of all, not solitary creatures and second of all, we are deeply embedded in the lives of others. It’s very easy to forget that and to engage in an atomistic fallacy – where we think that all we have to do is study the individual components of a system in order to understand the system.

There are so many different elements to surfing. Small waves, big waves, long boards, short boards. This makes it a sport you can share with people. It’s not just a solitary thing – it’s become a family thing, too. It’s about exercising and passing something on from father to son, and from mother to daughter.

The loneliest ebb of my life came on that Christmas eve, only one day after my arrival in New York. The abyss of loneliness. I ate a solitary dinner in a small cafe, and the very food tasted bitter with my unshed tears. One doesn’t dare cry in America. It is unmanly here.

I spent 11 years in isolation units, solitary confinement… in the hardest places for women.

I used to live a very social life and never spend much solitary time looking at birds or reading.

When you’re writing, it’s a very solitary job. It’s you and your word processor and a cup of tea.

I have a nice little office, with a nice little window in it, but I do basically spend huge amounts of time in what you could consider solitary confinement.

Too often, tributes to the home-cooked meal assume every family has a schedule that gets everyone home by 5:30 P.M. And too many recipes treat cooking as a solitary pursuit that requires the cook – still most often Mom – to take time away from other family interactions and chores.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice.

Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it’s through writing that we make certain vital connections.

Being a mother is a little like ‘Groundhog’s Day.’ It’s getting out of bed and doing the exact same things again and again and yet again – and it’s watching it all get undone again and again and yet again. It’s humbling, monotonous, mind-numbing, and solitary.

Me, you could stick me in solitary confinement for 100 years and I’d be fine.

It’s the same thing in a way, although writing a book is a very solitary thing.

For me, writing and creating music can be quite a solitary thing.

Novel writing is solitary work.

Peter Sellers was a solitary character, always preferring to hide behind a mask, and consequently, you never really got to know the real Sellers.

Those who embrace belief in Christ Jesus are bound together in Him, in a real yet incomplete way, in his Body, the Church. Faith is never a solitary activity, nor can it be simply private. Faith in Christ always draws us into a community and has a public dimension.

The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement – if you can’t deal with this, you needn’t apply.

It’s not very fashionable, but I love life, and I believe that things disappear and reappear and nothing ever solidifies, no matter how middle-class, housebroken, staid, and solitary someone‘s life seems to be. That, I think, is what I’m writing about.

Through every struggle that I have been confronted with and have been subjected to – solitary confinement, long legal battles, and physically transitioning to the woman I have always been – I manage not only to survive, but to grow, learn, mature, and thrive as a better, more confident person.

When you’ve written a movie, you then get together with a whole lot of people and make it. In many ways, I think it is far nicer to be with people rather than being completely solitary.

I feel, in my live shows, I can be as dynamic as I want. It’s my comfort zone. When I get in the studio, it’s more of a solitary experience, which can be good creatively.

To some extent, all authors are a little schizophrenic. We lead most of our lives in solitary confinement, living and breathing the books that we’re writing.

Romney Marsh remains one of the last great wildernesses of south-east England. Flat as a desert, and at times just as daunting, it is an odd, occasionally eerie wetland straddling the coastal borders of Kent and Sussex, rich in birds, local folklore and solitary medieval churches.

I love getting out the house because writing is such a solitary business that even being at the library makes me feel part of the world.

Mark all mathematical heads which be wholly and only bent on these sciences, how solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, how unapt to serve the world.

I like weeding, but I tend to think of it as a solitary activity.

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

I like the busy-ness of office life. What I discovered, to my surprise, is that I love the solitary nature of writing. What happens is that you write when you’re ready.

There’s a part of me that wishes I’d never said one single solitary word on any subject publicly. Then I could have been the tortured poet, and there’s so much mileage in that. But it’s too late to stop now.

I’m somewhat of a solitary person.

I have always written about characters who fall somewhere in the spectrum between solitary and totally alienated.

Every champion golfer comes to Augusta imbued with a towering source of inspiration. It’s a solitary journey, but it’s one that no player… makes alone.

Lots of creativity is and should be solitary.

Painting is a lonely, mostly solitary act.

Everything I write tends to turn into a superhero team, even if I didn’t mean for it to. I always start off wanting to be solitary, because a) it’s simpler, and b) that isolation is something that I relate to as a storyteller. And then no matter what, I always end up with a team.

Also, painting and animation are really solitary pursuits, so the collaborative aspects of music making and acting are pretty welcome sometimes.

I’m a pretty solitary type of person.

I always loved that solitary experience of making things. There’s a solitary aspect to animating… It’s ultimately the animator and the puppet coaxing a performance out of it.