“Everyone who had ever cared to investigate the nature of human loneliness had seen that only one’s own working mind breaks the solitude of the self.” ThinkingSolitude Book:Approaching Eye Level Source: Approaching Eye Level
“Those of us who crave the expressive but can’t shake off the melancholy walk the street.” WritingWalkingSolitude Book:Approaching Eye Level Source: Approaching Eye Level
“The telephone conversation is, by its very nature, reactive, not reflective. Immediacy is its prime virtue. ... The letter, written in absorbed solitude, is an act of faith: it assumes the presence of humanity: world and self are generated from within: loneliness is courted, not feared. To write a letter is to be alone with my thoughts in the conjured presence of another person. I keep myself imaginative company. I occupy the empty room.” WorldWritingPersonsSelfHumanityRoomsCompanyVirtueWrittenLonelinessSolitudeConversationEmptyLettersAssumingPrimeTelephonesMy ThoughtsImaginativeImmediacyEmpty Rooms Author:Vivian Gornick
“When the whole world is writing letters, it's easy to lap into the quiet within, tell the story of an hour, keep alive the narrating inner life. To be alone in the presence of one's thought is not a value, only a common practice.” ThinkingWorldWritingWholeStoriesValuesEasyHoursCommonPracticeAliveSolitudeQuietLettersWhole WorldThoughtfulLapInner Life Author:Vivian Gornick
“What Independence Has Come to Mean to Me: The Pain of Solitude. The Pleasure of Self-Knowledge” MeanSelfPainPleasureSolitudeIndependenceSelf Knowledge Author:Vivian Gornick
