Top 140 Solitary Quotes

Writing, by nature, is a fairly solitary occupation.

Magic’s quite a solitary pursuit – a thing you can do for hours and hours, getting better and better.

The impact of solitary confinement can have a devastating consequence to the psychology of the people who are affected.

Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks… Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time.

‘The Creative Habit’ is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. ‘The Collaborative Habit’ is obviously about surviving with other people.

I love the solitary, romantic idea of writing.

I love writing books, but it’s a solitary experience. When I’m on a film set, I’m with a bunch of other artists working together to make one thing.

Well, I’m a runner, and I have to run with Secret Service – even though they can run twice as fast. It took me a while to get used to running with them, because I love the solitary aspect of it. So I have two rules. First, I can’t hear their feet. And second, I can’t see their shadows.

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers.

The loneliest ebb of my life came on that Christmas eve, only one day after my arrival in New York. The abyss of loneliness. I ate a solitary dinner in a small cafe, and the very food tasted bitter with my unshed tears. One doesn’t dare cry in America. It is unmanly here.

It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.

The serious questions that are talked out or strangled with red tape are more numerous than those that are killed by silence; the number of people whose ideas are knocked on the head in societies is greater in our day than that of the solitary fighters who go under.

Solitary pursuits like playing video games and skateboarding can’t compete with the thrill of mobbing a teammate as he scores the winning run – nor do they end with a postgame trip to Dairy Queen.

For me, acting has often been solitary. You’re all together, and then boom, you’re gone.

I’m not, by nature, a collaborator. My biggest influences were people like painters and poets. These are solitary workers.

Receiving far less attention are the working class heroes, who go about their solitary work routines with quiet dignity, come home from another grueling day, yet still find time to interact with their children.

It’s taken me a long time to work out what people are thinking and what they’re expecting. I am naturally solitary, and I’m comfortable with that.

We are winning millions to Christ, one soul at a time. Every single, solitary soul is precious.

I always thought of deer as solitary animals that weren’t very interesting. But my goodness, that was very wrong. The big eye-opener for me was that they’re social. They have family groups.

It’s never one solitary event that has changed my life. It’s a bunch of little pieces that built and built up to where I am now.

Writing is a way of drifting within my own mind: almost a solitary process, so to speak.

A solitary laugh is often a laugh of superiority.

I think I’m a very solitary person. To actually not be anonymous is a bit claustrophobic for me.

I was a very happy but quite solitary kid. I spent hours playing on my own, mainly with toy soldiers, and played entire World Cup football tournaments in the garden with commentary in my head.

Sometimes the solitary voice can be the best one.

Mark all mathematical heads which be wholly and only bent on these sciences, how solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, how unapt to serve the world.

As a painter you’re responsible yourself, 100 percent. In film, you have the editor, the director, the other actors. It has the advantage of not being solitary.

Those who embrace belief in Christ Jesus are bound together in Him, in a real yet incomplete way, in his Body, the Church. Faith is never a solitary activity, nor can it be simply private. Faith in Christ always draws us into a community and has a public dimension.

Also, painting and animation are really solitary pursuits, so the collaborative aspects of music making and acting are pretty welcome sometimes.

Runners exalt the marathon as a public test of private will, when months or years of solitary training, early mornings, lost weekends, rain and pain mature into triumph or surrender. That’s one reason the race-day crowds matter, the friends who come to cheer and stomp and flap their signs and push the runners on.

I like solitary pursuits, such as reading or pottering about in the garden.

I always loved that solitary experience of making things. There’s a solitary aspect to animating… It’s ultimately the animator and the puppet coaxing a performance out of it.

People sometimes have a view of programming that is something solitary and very technical. But programming is among the most creative, expressive, and social careers.

Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it’s through writing that we make certain vital connections.

Bradley Manning has been imprisoned without charge, under torture, which is what solitary confinement is.

Writing can be a very solitary profession, and when deadlines are looming, it’s tempting to glue myself to my desk, but I try to make sure I get out a few times a month with friends just so I don’t forget what it means to be social.

My mother had been a solitary chef. It was her recreation and her escape.

Dance music tends to be a solitary affair.

Writing is such a solitary existence, and I can only do it late at night.

I feel, in my live shows, I can be as dynamic as I want. It’s my comfort zone. When I get in the studio, it’s more of a solitary experience, which can be good creatively.

I think there’s something beautifully old fashioned about waiting all week then sitting down and watching something on television together. I’m generation box set, accustomed to binging on multiple episodes at a time, which is fun but quite a solitary pursuit because you do it alone.

Novels are so interior and idiosyncratic and such a solitary process.

You start to forget about the world outside – it’s not relevant or relatable anymore. The darkest part of solitary confinement is that you start to forget about cars and jobs and families and weather and politicians – and all the things that make up a society.

I used to live a very social life and never spend much solitary time looking at birds or reading.

I read like a crazy person, I play the piano, and I’m a photographer. I always say my photography keeps me sane. I spend a lot of time in the darkroom. It’s a very solitary, quiet life when I’m not working.

Well, it’s true that I’ve never been solitary, although I spend a lot of time alone. I’ve never felt lonely or been shy.

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

Working in network news is not a solitary pursuit; it is the ultimate ‘team sport,’ in which success is derived from the collective performances of remarkable people united in purpose and dedication.

The first thing I tell women is this: They think that coding or being in any computer field is very solitary, very solemn, that you’re just set off in a cubicle somewhere and it’s not social and it’s not creative. I would tell them that it’s the furthest from the truth.

Being a mother is a little like ‘Groundhog’s Day.’ It’s getting out of bed and doing the exact same things again and again and yet again – and it’s watching it all get undone again and again and yet again. It’s humbling, monotonous, mind-numbing, and solitary.

That’s one of the great things about creativity. You labor away in a room, and when you’re writing a film, it couldn’t be more of a solitary activity or a lonelier job, but if you then write a film that gets made and goes out into the world, it kind of flies away from you. It’s not yours anymore.

It’s funny: I’m a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it’s been a solitary thing.

Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.

I’m the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it’s the best of both possible worlds.

My father died when I was 9 years old. The miserable condition of my family at that time is beyond description. My family, solitary and without influence, became at once the target of much insult and abuse.

I’m quite a solitary person. I like being on my own.

There is a heavy-ego, solitary model of being an elected leader. We’ve certainly seen that in some other mayors of this city… I have much more of a Movement mentality. It’s much more of what I’m steeped in. I don’t think it is first and foremost about me. It’s about the ideas and the agenda.

The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.

Few occupations pass the solitary hours more fruitfully than the playing of a musical instrument.

Through every struggle that I have been confronted with and have been subjected to – solitary confinement, long legal battles, and physically transitioning to the woman I have always been – I manage not only to survive, but to grow, learn, mature, and thrive as a better, more confident person.

Writing can be a very solitary business. It’s you sat at a desk typing words into a computer. It can get lonely sometimes and lots of writers live quite isolated lives.

Me, you could stick me in solitary confinement for 100 years and I’d be fine.

As we have seen, WikiLeaks is a robust organization. During my time in solitary confinement in the basement of a Victorian prison, we continue to release, our media partners continued to write stories. The important revelations from this material continue to come out. We have approximately 2,000 cables into 250,000.

I am a bit of a solitude person – a solitary personality. I like being on my own. I don’t have any major friendships or relationships with people.

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

When you’ve written a movie, you then get together with a whole lot of people and make it. In many ways, I think it is far nicer to be with people rather than being completely solitary.

I love getting out the house because writing is such a solitary business that even being at the library makes me feel part of the world.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

I think any song should sound good just played on a solitary instrument with the vocal. If you have those basics you have all you need. The production then just polishes that idea into the finished thing.

We were now arrived at the close of our solitary journeyings along the St. Joseph’s trail.

Acting can be very solitary, even if you’re in a scene with someone else, because you worry about your own performance and if you look good.

Having animals in the city is entirely different from having animals out in the country. For one thing, it’s more social. When you live on lots of acres without neighbors within a stone’s throw, your dog-walks are usually solitary rambles over hill and dale.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

I have always written about characters who fall somewhere in the spectrum between solitary and totally alienated.

My friends in Paris are writers, or something like that, whereas my friends in New York are doing cool stuff in finance and living very different lives. In writing, it’s pretty solitary, so it doesn’t really matter who’s around.

There’s a part of me that wishes I’d never said one single solitary word on any subject publicly. Then I could have been the tortured poet, and there’s so much mileage in that. But it’s too late to stop now.

I had become shy of life’s bustle in my solitary retreat and was apprehensive at the thought of facing the world.

Every champion golfer comes to Augusta imbued with a towering source of inspiration. It’s a solitary journey, but it’s one that no player… makes alone.

Normally, with stand-up, it’s quite solitary, you write the material on your own, you perform it on your own, it’s all very much on you. Your own thoughts. You have to sort of modulate your own performance.

As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it’s only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.

Composition has almost always been solitary.

I spent 11 years in isolation units, solitary confinement… in the hardest places for women.

Too often, tributes to the home-cooked meal assume every family has a schedule that gets everyone home by 5:30 P.M. And too many recipes treat cooking as a solitary pursuit that requires the cook – still most often Mom – to take time away from other family interactions and chores.

Being married and having a child was not something I wanted, and I knew that at a very young age. I tend to be more solitary, and I’m truly a free spirit.

The evidence is overwhelming that it should be deemed as such: solitary confinement in the U.S. is arbitrary, abused, and unnecessary in many situations. It is cruel, degrading, and inhumane and is effectively a ‘no touch’ torture.

My two bits here are that writing is a solitary job but there are times when one needs to discuss the work, and see what’s working and what’s not.

Novelists in particular love to rhapsodize about the glory of the solitary mind; this is natural, because their job requires them to sit in a room by themselves for years on end. But for most of the rest of us, we think and remember socially.

When you’re writing, it’s a very solitary job. It’s you and your word processor and a cup of tea.

Those 18 months in solitary confinement… bruised my soul. If I had had a weapon, I would have fought my way out.

Music has been more a solitary, creative thing. The acting side of things and working in movies has helped me collaboratively with music in terms of helping me get ideas across to other people and making it more of a team efforts.

Novel writing is solitary work.

I didn’t mind the 23 hours a day solitary confinement for the majority of the time, because after the first few years in prison, when I stopped being angry and started to like myself and understand myself, it was OK. I still enjoy my own company sometimes.

Everything I write tends to turn into a superhero team, even if I didn’t mean for it to. I always start off wanting to be solitary, because a) it’s simpler, and b) that isolation is something that I relate to as a storyteller. And then no matter what, I always end up with a team.

I had no idea how complicated and solitary it could be to write a simple book.

Solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any human being, no matter what his crime. Hardened criminals in the men’s prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead.

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

Life is a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

The free sharing and teaching of open source is incompatible with the notion of the solitary genius.

‘Et Tu, Babe’ was born out of my absolute certainty that a writer’s life was solitary and insular, and I was happy with that. I love reading and writing; it’s my whole life.

Peter Sellers was a solitary character, always preferring to hide behind a mask, and consequently, you never really got to know the real Sellers.

We are, first of all, not solitary creatures and second of all, we are deeply embedded in the lives of others. It’s very easy to forget that and to engage in an atomistic fallacy – where we think that all we have to do is study the individual components of a system in order to understand the system.

Writing a novel is solitary, but I don’t mind that.

It’s true that it’s a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.

I really like the collaboration of doing movies and television. But I like the sort of solitary work of doing music.

As an actor, I’m always playing solitary characters. But as a director, I’m always making ensemble movies, which focus on lots of people’s lives and how they intertwine.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

When I sing, it’s the most solitary state: just me, and the microphone, and the holy spirit. It’s not about notes or scales, it’s all about emotion.

Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.

Solitude is not the same as loneliness. Solitude is a solitary boat floating in a sea of possible companions.

If you’re living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you.

Writing is a solitary profession; you are really alone when you write. Then the emotions become well shaped and distinct. But their transition into words must be done deliberately and with rigid artistry.

I like weeding, but I tend to think of it as a solitary activity.

Headlining can be sort of solitary – you’re sort of on your own out there, and you start to feel for a change.

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual – for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

I think there are a lot of really positive aspects to social media for novelists. Even though our work is pretty solitary, through Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and Instagram and blogging in general, we’re better able to connect directly with readers.

I do not think that Mulder trusts any one other than Scully. He s very solitary. She is the only one who takes him seriously. I don t know if they re in love. In a way, their relationship is deeper than that, because they cannot live without each other.

Acting always affects every part of your life because it’s such a solitary, lonely, and thrilling circumstance that you’re taking on someone else’s character and that responsibility. It’s exhausting.

The most solitary I ever felt was when I was living in New York. I used to live in Enrico Caruso’s old apartment, and I had a special staircase that took me up to the roof. There was nobody up there.

A man, to read, must read alone. He may make extracts, he may work at books in company; but to read, to absorb, he must be solitary.

I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it’s a good crack and you feel you’re on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking.

I like the idea of being a sculptor. Just me alone, making something – that solitary existence.

Shortly after arriving at a makeshift military jail at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in May 2010, I was placed into the black hole of solitary confinement for the first time.

I’ve always loved the seaside and I used to be a fairly keen surfer, but it’s a solitary activity so when my husband and I had children, we bought sit-on-top kayaks. Whenever possible, we escape to the coast or explore rivers with them.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

The power of a book lies in its power to turn a solitary act into a shared vision. As long as we have books, we are not alone.

The pushy showbiz kid thing was always the performance, not the person. I’m very solitary. I don’t like socialising.

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice.

Painting and writing are solitary arts.

It’s a cliche, but true, that writing is intensely solitary and at times really lonely. I sit in one room and talk to squirrels and blue jays all day.

Writing is a solitary existence. Making a movie is controlled chaos – thousands of moving parts and people. Every decision is a compromise. If you’re writing and you don’t like how your character looks or talks, you just fix it. But in a movie, if there’s something you don’t like, that’s tough.

Increasingly I think of myself as some strange and solitary conductor, introduced to a group of very dynamic musicians who happen to be my characters, and I have no idea how they are going to play together, and I have certainly no idea how I am going to put manners on them.

I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it’s easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin’ man and the loner.

A solitary child growing up in Africa, you’re really quite dependent on books.

Book collecting is a largely solitary, mostly male, and completely absorbing activity.

It’s not very fashionable, but I love life, and I believe that things disappear and reappear and nothing ever solidifies, no matter how middle-class, housebroken, staid, and solitary someone’s life seems to be. That, I think, is what I’m writing about.

I was quite solitary for ‘Hitman.’ I was quite apart. He struck me as a very sad individual. There was a mournful quality there.

Solitary decisions, no matter how well-founded they may appear to individuals, must belong to the past – along with national, unilateralist action.

It seems there is no area in our culture that is not touched, changed, even swallowed by the Internet. It’s both medium and message, mass and personal, social and solitary.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, but not a lonely one. When you write, your world is populated by the characters you invent, and you feel those people filling your life.

I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.