...alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life--it was not worth much--not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage,he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one--we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.

We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.

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 wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Song of a Second AprilAPRIL this year, not otherwiseThan April of a year agoIs full of whispers, full of sighs,Dazzling mud and dingy snow;Hepaticas that pleased you soAre here again, and butterflies.There rings a hammering all day,And shingles lie about the doors;From orchards near and far awayThe gray wood-pecker taps and bores,And men are merry at their chores,And children earnest at their play.The larger streams run still and deep;Noisy and swift the small brooks run.Among the mullein stalks the sheepGo up the hillside in the sunPensively; only you are gone,You that alone I cared to keep.

One evening he was in his room, his brow pressing hard against the pane, looking, without seeing them, at the chestnut trees in the park, which had lost much of their russet-coloured foliage. A heavy mist obscured the distance, and the night was falling grey rather than black, stepping cautiously with its velvet feet upon the tops of the trees. A great swan plunged and replunged amorously its neck and shoulders into the smoking water of the river, and its whiteness made it show in the darkness like a great star of snow. It was the single living being that somewhat enlivened the lonely landscape.

And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for. I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up on my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't.

This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction ofDemian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begunwith Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughtsof Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams andexpectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to?

I won,” said Chelsea’s dad, and went to give Chelsea a high-five, but missed, as they were standing too close.“My fault,” he said. “That was my fault.”“Oh,” Chelsea said.And he stepped back a little and tried again, but Chelsea, distracted now by something—maybe the plant in the far corner, standing and waiting like a person in a dream; or maybe the green shoe or some other thing that was out there and longing, to be looked at, and taken—wasn’t ready, and their hands, his then hers, passed through the air in a kind of wave, a little goodbye.

She spent the foggy day in endless, aimless walking, for it seemed to her that if she moved quickly enough she would escape the fear that hunted her. It was a vague and shadowy fear of something cruel and stupid that had caught her and would never let her go. She had always known that it was there - hidden under the more of less pleasant surface of things. Always. Ever since she was a child.You could argue about hunger or cold or loneliness, but with that fear you couldn't argue. It went too deep. You were too mysteriously sure of its terror. You could only walk very fast and try to leave it behind you.

There are extremes within any population, but on average, at least among young adults, those who feel lonely actually spend no more time alone than do those who feel more connected. They are no more or less physically attractive than average, and they do not differ, on average, from the non-lonely in terms of height, weight, age, education, or intelligence. Most important, when we look at the broad continuum (rather than just the extremes) of people who feel lonely, we find that they have the capacity to be just as socially adept as anyone else. Feeling lonely does not mean that we have deficient social skills.

Consider A MoveThe steady time of being unknown,in solitude, without friends,is not a steadiness that sustains.I hear your voice waver on the phone:Haven't talked to anyone for days.I drive around. I sit in parking lots.The voice zeroes through my ear, and waits.What should I say? There are waysto meet people you will want to love?I know of none. You come out strongerhaving gone through this? I no longerbelieve that, if I once did. Consider a move,a change, a job, a new place to live,someplace you'd like to be. That's not it,you say. Now time turns back. We almost touch.Then what is? I ask. What is?

Yaşamının mercek altına alınmasından gizliden gizliye zevk almayan bir hastayla henüz karşılaşmamıştı. Mercek ne kadar detaylı gösterirse hasta o kadar çok zevk alırdı. İncelenmekten alınan keyif o kadar büyük olurdu ki Breuer yaşlanma, sevdiklerini kaybetme ve dostlarından uzun yaşamanın asıl acı yanının sizi inceleyen gözlerin bulunmaması olduğuna inanırdı; hiç kimsenin dikkat etmediği bir yaşamdan duyulan dehşet ...

When I was a kid--10, 11, 12, 13--the thing I wanted most in the world was a best friend. I wanted to be important to people; to have people that understood me. I wanted to just be close to somebody. And back then, a thought would go through my head almost constantly: "There's never gonna be a room someplace where there's a group of people sitting around, having fun, hanging out, where one of them goes, 'You know what would be great? We should call Fiona. Yeah, that would be good.' That'll never happen. There's nothing interesting about me." I just felt like I was a sad little boring thing.

If you like, you can all think of it as my gift to you. I never had much else to give. You can get on and play your own lives as you like, while I just keep moving. This story of it all can be another gift. I’ve made an arrangement with Adam. When I’ve finished, which is almost now, I’m going to put the bundle of papers in the garden of the Old Fort, before I move on. Adam’s going to get them and take them to his father. And if you read it and don’t believe it’s real, so much the better. It will make another safeguard against Them.But you wouldn’t believe how lonely you get.

Iedereen is zo bang om eenzaam te zijn, alsof aids en eenzaamheid de ergste dingen zijn die een mens kunnen overkomen besmettelijke ziekten zijn het aids door bloed en lichaamsvloeistoffen die zich met elkaar vermengen maar eenzaamheid is toch erger daar word je mee besmet door lucht, vuur en water. Kijk, een eenzaam mens! Pas op! Bescherm je! Houd afstand! Als je dichtbij komt kun je worden zoals hij. Of zij. Wie wil er nu eenzaam zijn? Eenzaamheid levert nul punten op. Je moet veel en interesante vrienden om je heen verzamelen. De telefoon moet vaak rinkelen. Je moet populair zijn, je moet bij vrolijke mensen horen.