I’ve always been a loner.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

I’m not comfortable being around too many people. I don’t like being out in public too much. I don’t like going to bars. I don’t like doing celebrity stuff. So most of the characters I play are people who don’t always feel comfortable beyond their small circle of friends.

I was very depressed when I was 19… I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging out with me.

There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.

You cannot be creative with people around you.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

I used to wonder if it was God’s plan that I should be alone for so much of my life. But I found peace. I found happiness within people and the world.

I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.

I don’t have many friends; I’m very much a loner. As a child I was very isolated, and I’ve never been really close to anyone.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

I’ve been called a recluse. There’s definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone.

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

I am rather inclined to silence.

I’m different from any other designer, businesswise, in that I’ve built this company up and I own it. I never had business hype behind me to promote my image… My image is real… I have never had marketing people telling me what to do.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

I’m an old man, and all my life I’ve said that Notre Dame should remain independent because it’s a national school.

I’m an introvert somewhat. There could be a room full of people, I’ll go stand in the corner.

Mostly I stay at home from the morning until 5 P.M., and I only go out for fittings and shoots because I work at home. I like to be alone.

I’d like to be the last person alive in the world! Yes, I’d like to know what happens.

I’m an introvert… I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination.

I am an introvert; privately I am very shy, and I don’t speak unless I have to.

I’m very low-key. I don’t really blend in, so it’s difficult to go out in public. I like to do things that are kind of quiet, whether it’s a dinner at my house or a restaurant, or a movie night at home.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.

There’s love, and certainly children you care about more than yourself. But nevertheless, we’re alone in our heads.

One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

I have an urge to communicate. I think I’m a change from what it would be like dating a normal guy who doesn’t talk too much.

I’m attracted to women who are smart and funny and ambitious and have lives of their own and great families. Isn’t that what attracts anyone?

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline… because you need to be alone to find out anything.

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.

Poland should be strong and prosperous and independent and play its proper role as a great nation in the heart of Europe.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.

Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

I’m not a person that socializes very well.

God is absence. God is the solitude of man.

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Solitude is independence.

Maybe ‚loner‘ is too strong a word, but I’ve always enjoyed being on my own.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

No one can live without relationship. You may withdraw into the mountains, become a monk, a sannyasi, wander off into the desert by yourself, but you are related. You cannot escape from that absolute fact. You cannot exist in isolation.

I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

It is better to be alone than in bad company.