“There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely.”

“What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.”

“You can’t receive self-assurance or esteem, it’s something you just give yourself. Nothing in the world can complete you, other than yourself. Loneliness is an illusion, people try to search for themselves in other people or objects and it’s pointless. If you are with yourself, you are never lonely, if you hide from yourself you will always be lonely no matter how many people you try to cover that up with. Loneliness is a state of mind, not a situation that the world throws at you.”

“Yes, alone we are, deeply alone, and always, in store for us, a layer of loneliness even deeper. There is nothing we can do to dispose of that. No, loneliness shouldn’t surprise us, as astonishing to experience as it may be. You can try yourself inside out, but all you are then is inside out and lonely instead of inside in and lonely. My stupid, stupid Merry dear, stupider even that your stupid father, not even blowing up buildings helps. It’s lonely if there are buildings and it’s lonely if there are buildings and it’s lonely if there are no buildings. There is no protest to be lodged against loneliness⎯not all the bombing campaigns in history have made a dent in it. The most lethal of manmade explosives can’t touch it. Stand in awe not of Communism, my idiot child, but of ordinary, everyday loneliness.”

“SOLIDAO, LONELINESS.What is it that we call loneliness. It can't simply be the absence of others, you can be alone and not lonely, and you can be among people and yet be lonely. So what is it? ... it isn't only that others are there, that they fill up the space next to us. But even when they celebrate us or give advice in a friendly conversation, clever, sensitive advice: even then we can be lonely. So loneliness is not something simply connected with the presence of others or with what they do. Then what? What on earth?”

“Perhaps loneliness had nothing to do with place or circumstance; perhaps it was in you; yourself. Perhaps, wherever you were, you took your little circle of loneliness with you...”