“Women would be better off when they no longer needed men more than they needed their own independent identities...How long a time it took me after my divorce to understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely.”

“But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.”

“I like being on my own better than I like anything else, but I can't give up love. Maybe it's the tension between longing and aloneness that I need. My own funicular railway, holding in balance the two things most likely to destroy me.”

“It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer remembered how to be alone without being lonely.”

“The only place their voices were left was in my head. It was better than being alone but it was so, so lonely.”

“Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes.”