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

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

Of course I get hurt.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

A man is born alone and dies alone; and he experiences the good and bad consequences of his karma alone; and he goes alone to hell or the Supreme abode.

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

I am alone; I am always alone no matter what.

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

I felt rich when I was 20 years old and my wife was paying my bills. Just being in a band, I’ve always felt blessed.

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

The worst times were the years I was alone. The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.

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

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

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

The two things in the world we all share in this world are laughter and pain. We’ve all got problems. The levels of those problems vary, but we’ve all got problems. When you can take things that are painful and make them funny, that’s a gift – to you and your audience.

As an elder of the Americas and of the rest of the planet, it is my responsibility to care for and protect, to the best of my ability, the young.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

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.

The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.

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

If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it’s my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth.

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.

My performance outfits are very Marie Antoinette, sparkly corsets… and full skirts. And then we do another look that’s ’50s-inspired. Poufy skirts, big bows. Very fun, girlie and young, but otherwise, when I’m not in costume, I dress really normal.

With fools, there is no companionship. Rather than to live with men who are selfish, vain, quarrelsome, and obstinate, let a man walk alone.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

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.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

However, because Britain is young and exciting, I did show my second line here once or twice.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.

There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

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.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

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.

Like the experience of warfare, the endurance of grave or terminal illness involves long periods of tedium and anxiety, punctuated by briefer interludes of stark terror and pain.

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.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

If danger arises in the present moment, there may be an emotion. There may even be pain. But that’s a challenge, not a problem. For a problem to exist, you need time and repetitive mind activity.

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.