“She had often wondered whether solitude was a skill one could lose, like schoolgirl latin, or whether it was simply a talent one acquired, bike-like, never afterwards forgotten.”
Source: Salt Slow
“When we think of company, we usually think of people. But animals too are company, as are plants, the sea, wine, and all beautiful things. I call them "low intensity company", and, often, I prefer them.”
Source: Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions
“Pleasantly full as she was, Rika felt like crying. She might dine with someone, but at the end of the meal they would go their separate ways. She couldn’t stay with that person forever. Even with her stomach full of warmth and the taste of delicious food lingering on her tongue, she remained alone. It didn’t matter who she had for company. She was beginning to understand that the more delicious the time she spent with others, the more alone she felt.”
Source: Butter
“Oh, I am—I am lonely—with the loneliness of unshared thought.”
Source: Emily's Quest
“He was never alone—always with somebody. Yet in his heart, something told him differently.”
Source: Becoming the Conjurer
“His vast room was vacant and dark, cave-like, with him as the only occupant, alone in his chair and staring at the candle's flame on his desk, which seemed to live and breathe. He didn't quite know why, but he felt alone.”
Source: Becoming the Conjurer
“Days turned into fleeting moments,
Wrapped in laughter, lost in dreams,
Yet a voice, so soft and distant,
Echoed doubts in silent screams.”
Source: 18 Stitches Of Love
“Thomas [Hart] lived where he'd been born, and where (so he often thought without rancor) he'd very likely die; and if he lived alone he was not lonely, that being a condition not of solitude but of longing, and Thomas was not a discontented man.”
Source: Enlightenment
“And humans were not made to be always alone; humans survive only in the company of other humans.”
Source: The Vaster Wilds
“There is no magic like travelling alone, without friends or colleagues to condition one's opinions. It is the very loneliness that makes travel worthwhile: to be in isolation with historical forces, with only landscapes and books as guides.”
Source: Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus