“I believe solitude to be not only the unavoidable human condition but also the sensible human preference."― Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories, (from "Mates")”

“Binoculars, and a hawk-like vigilance, reduce the disadvantage of myopic human vision.”

“Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.”

“In the late twentieth century we consider solitude our natural condition. Mates divorce, and even friendship is diagnosed as a disorder - co-dependency. So the concept of living a life interlocked with another human is unthinkable”

“Solitude is a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end. Every choice is a world made new for the chosen.”

“Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.”