“Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.”

“Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship.”

“To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”

“She talked about wanting to be a part of something, wanting to be desired, to be 'special', craving to be loved. She talked about experiencing the kind of loneliness so immense it could swallow you up. She called it 'loneliness that crowds couldn't cure'.”

“The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that "loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude." Because the borderline finds solitude so difficult to tolerate, she is trapped in a relentless metaphysical loneliness from which the the only relief comes from of the physical presence of others. So she will often rush to singles bars or with crowded haunts, often with disappointing--or even violent--results.”

“He was a puzzle. And Hyacinth hated puzzles.Well, no, in truth she loved them.Provided, of course, that she solved them.”