“Much better stay in company!To love you must have someone else,Giving requires a legatee,Good neighbours need whole parishfulsOf folk to do it on - in short,Our virtues are all social; if,Deprived of solitude, you chafe,It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.”

“When I was a child, I thought,Casually, that solitudeNever needed to be sought.Something everybody had,Like nakedness, it lay at hand,Not specially right or specially wrong,A plentiful and obvious thingNot at all hard to understand.Then, after twenty, it becameAt once more difficult to getAnd more desired -- though all the sameMore undesirable; for whatYou are alone has, to achieveThe rank of fact, to be expressedIn terms of others, or it's justA compensating make-believe.Much better stay in company!To love you must have someone else,Giving requires a legatee,Good neighbours need whole parishfulsOf folk to do it on -- in short,Our virtues are all social; if,Deprived of solitude, you chafe,It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.Viciously, then, I lock my door.The gas-fire breathes. The wind outsideUshers in evening rain. Once moreUncontradicting solitudeSupports me on its giant palm;And like a sea-anemoneOr simple snail, there cautiouslyUnfolds, emerges, what I am."(Best Company)”

“A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.”

“Someone will care if you just give 'em a chance. There's always people who need you as much as you need them. Don't you forget that. All you got to do is find 'em. And when you do, you find you're happier carin' about someone else than just about yourself all the time.”

“Could live with you in solitude and need no one else. Give me your love.”

“..he never requires more than I am able to give, and what he does require of me is always appropriate to my knowledge and circumstances....My obligation is to give all I have, not all someone else has, to be as good as I can be, not as good as someone else is.”