“
The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.
”
”
Mother Teresa (A Simple Path: Mother Teresa)
“
I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage)
“
When God Created Mothers"
When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."
And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands."
The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way."
It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have."
That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded.
One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word."
God," said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow...."
I can't," said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger...and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower."
The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed.
But tough!" said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure."
Can it think?"
Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator.
Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek.
There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model."
It's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear."
What's it for?"
It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride."
You are a genius, " said the angel.
Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.
”
”
Erma Bombeck (When God Created Mothers)
“
One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.
”
”
Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
“
I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it's about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
The cure for loneliness is solitude.
”
”
Marianne Moore (Complete Prose of Marianne Moore)
“
She talked about wanting to be a part of something, wanting to be desired, to be 'special', craving to be loved. She talked about experiencing the kind of loneliness so immense it could swallow you up. She called it 'loneliness that crowds couldn't cure'.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
To recognize you are the source of your own loneliness is not a cure for it. But it is a step toward seeing that it is not inevitable, and that such a choice is not irrevocable.
”
”
Robin Hobb (Golden Fool (Tawny Man, #2))
“
What did falling in love do for you? Can you ever really explain it? It filled empty spaces I never knew were empty. It cured a loneliness I never knew I had. It gave me joy. And freedom. I think that was the most amazing part. I suddenly felt both embraced and freed at the same time.
”
”
Louise Penny (The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #8))
“
We all fear loneliness, madness, dying. Shakespeare and Walt Whitman, Leopardi and Hart Crane will not cure those fears. And yet these poets bring us fire and light.
”
”
Harold Bloom (The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life)
“
Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you’re lonely and of course they’ll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly.
”
”
David Nicholls (Starter for Ten)
“
If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure.
”
”
Richard Ford
“
I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought into the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives—those fountains of inconvenient feeling—and toward the frantic enticements of what our friends in the Greed Business call the Free Market. We’re hurtling through time and space and information faster and faster, seeking that network connection. But at the same time we’re falling away from our families and our neighbors and ourselves. We ego-surf and update our status and brush up on which celebrities are ruining themselves, and how. But the cure won’t stick.
”
”
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar)
“
A good book can be a light in the darkness. A good book can cure loneliness, change minds, or even change the world. A good book is nothing less than magic.
”
”
Alice Feeney (Good Bad Girl)
“
There seemed to be no cure for loneliness save only being alone.
”
”
John Steinbeck (Travels With Charley: In Search of America)
“
Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality, by understanding that we don’t need people.
”
”
Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
“
Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.
”
”
Anthony de Mello (Awareness)
“
I have found no other cure for loneliness than to befriend it.
”
”
Charlotte Eriksson
“
My kind of loneliness now has no cure, you know; it is something I expect to live with until I die. Friends are heavenly kind, sometimes fun; it would be fatal not to have them. But I by no means need or want daily contact; perhaps it takes as much out of me as it gives, perhaps takes more.
”
”
Martha Gellhorn
“
Call it professional interest. You see, Jessamine, love is a kind of poison; one of my favorite kinds, in fact. It infects the blood; it takes over the mind; it seizes dominion over the body. It amuses me to think of him pining for you. Aching for what he cannot have. The loneliness in his soul is festering like a wound. There is nothing I could do for him that is worse that what you have already done, my lovely. And I assure you, in his case there will be no cure.
”
”
Maryrose Wood (The Poison Diaries (The Poison Diaries, #1))
“
It sounds ironic to say that the cure for loneliness is aloneness. I don’t mean that you should just make yourself more miserable; I am prescribing instead a form of solitude that is meditative and open to your inner self.
”
”
Robert A. Johnson (Balancing Heaven and Earth: A Memoir of Visions, Dreams, and Realizations)
“
But I couldn't respond. My culture had taught me all the wrong things well. So I lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no colour or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can't be stilled. I clenched my teeth against the stars. I closed my eyes. I surrendered to sleep. One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.
”
”
Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
“
Books had always felt like the cure to her loneliness, but lately she'd wondered whether they were the cause of it, too.
”
”
Melissa Albert (Our Crooked Hearts)
“
There are certain things in life, not very many, that are real, confirmed cures for rainy days, for loneliness. Puzzles are like that. We each have to solve our own.
”
”
Iain Reid (I'm Thinking of Ending Things)
“
The surest cure for loneliness,
the quickest way to happiness,
is found in this, a simple creed:
Go serve someone in greater need.
”
”
William Arthur Ward
“
Loneliness isn’t an absence of company. Loneliness is felt when we are lost. But we can be lost right in the middle of a crowd. There is nothing lonelier than being with people who aren’t on your wavelength. The cure for loneliness isn’t more people. The cure for loneliness is understanding who we are.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Comfort Book)
“
There are kinds of solitude that provide a respite from loneliness, a holiday if not a cure.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
The awful thing about loneliness, Jack thought, not for the first time, is that it isn’t always cured by other people.
”
”
Peter Swanson (Nine Lives)
“
I’m broken. We’re all broken and right now we’re all isolated within that brokenness. The cure for the loneliness is connection—connection with that broken part of ourselves and with each other—and we can’t achieve that connection while pretending we are okay. We’re not okay.
”
”
L.M. Browning (To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity)
“
She was a wonderful teenage girl who had the miraculous power to cure herself from any wound, either physical or mental. With her own salty tears, she would cleanse her raw wounds. And her breaths were given, as though not to breathe but, rather, to fan her sores.
”
”
Khadija Rupa (Unexpressed Feelings)
“
As with all the best sci-fi writers, Kurt Vonnegut was really good at seeing into the future. Way back in 1974, he wrote, “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality, by understanding that we don’t need people. — Anthony de Mello
”
”
Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
“
He thought about alone in Constantinople that time, having quarreled in Paris before he had gone out. He had whored the whole time and then, when that was over, and he had failed to kill his loneliness, but only made it worse, he had written her, the first one, the one who left him, a letter telling her how he had never been able to kill it . . . . How when he thought he saw her outside the Regence one time it made him go all faint and sick inside, and that he would follow a woman that looked like her in some way, along the Boulevard, afraid to see it was not she, afraid to lose the feeling it gave him. How every one he had slept with had only made him miss her more. How what she had done could never matter since he could never cure himself of loving her.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway (The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway)
“
Our romantic lives are fated to be sad and incomplete, because we are creatures driven by two essential desires which point powerfully in entirely opposing directions. Yet what is worse is our utopian refusal to countenance the divergence, our naive hope that a cost-free synchronisation might somehow be found: that the libertine might live for adventure while avoiding loneliness and chaos. Or that the married Romantic might unite sex with tenderness, and passion with routine.”
“Infatuations aren’t delusions. That way a person has of holding their head may truly indicate someone confident, wry and sensitive; they really may have the humour and intelligence implied by their eyes and the tenderness suggested by their mouth. The error of the infatuation is more subtle: a failure to keep in mind the central truth of human nature that everyone – not merely our current partners, in whose multiple failings we are such experts – but everyone will have something substantially and maddeningly wrong with them when we spend more time around them, something so wrong as to make a mockery of those initially rapturous feelings.
The only people who can still strike us as normal are those we don’t yet know very well. The bet cure for love is to get to know them better.
”
”
Alain de Botton (The Course of Love)
“
The source of my suffering and loneliness is deep in my heart. This is a disease no doctor can cure. Only Union with the Friend can cure it.
”
”
Rabia Basri
“
The only cure for loneliness be givin’. When you be givin’ you ain’t got time to think ‘bout what you don’t got. But you got to give with your heart. You got to give from your heart. That’s the only sure way to beat back that old demon o’ loneliness.
”
”
Virginia Gaffney (On To Richmond (Bregdan Chronicles, #2))
“
I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
She loved sinking into her bed on evenings like this, but apparently she shouldn't, because it worried her aunts, who thought she ought to be out dancing. It worried her a little bit, too, because what if they were right, and because sometimes a great loneliness welled up in her and threatened all the dams she built to hold it back. You couldn't cure loneliness by wallowing in it, up above the world, on an island removed from everything. She knew that. But she had such a hard time with all the cures. They seemed rough and brusque and brutal, as if they abused her skin with a pot scrubber . . . forcing herself into a mass of people, a stranger among strangers. . . . But it was much more tempting to curl up with a book under her thick white comforter.
Still, sometimes after she curled up, she regretted her lack of courage and felt bleakly lonely.
It was important to have a really good book.
”
”
Laura Florand (The Chocolate Kiss (Amour et Chocolat, #2))
“
Love is an elixir,
so poets claim, a frothy hormonal
brew to cure what's ailing you. Drink
it in. Sip it slowly. Savor
its peculiar flavour as loneliness
and pain all melt away.
Dive headlong into the rush,
ride the raging river up against
the brink, careful not to drown. Drop
over the edge. Negotiate your fall,
for drug or love or object thrown,
one thing is certain. What goes up
eventually come down.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Flirtin' With the Monster: Your Favorite Authors on Ellen Hopkins' Crank and Glass)
“
Dear Reader,
We wouldn’t need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. But they don’t. Even those who love us get us wrong. They tell us who we are but miss things out. They claim to know what we need, but forget to ask us properly first. They can’t understand what we feel—and sometimes, we’re unable to tell them, because we don’t really understand it ourselves. That’s where books come in. They explain us to ourselves and to others, and make us feel less strange, less isolated and less alone. We might have lots of good friends, but even with the best friends in the world, there are things that no one quite gets. That’s the moment to turn to books. They are friends waiting for us any time we want them, and they will always speak honestly to us about what really matters. They are the perfect cure for loneliness. They can be our very closest friends.
Yours,
Alain
”
”
Maria Popova (A Velocity of Being: Letters to A Young Reader)
“
The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it. Being at war, however, always has been.
”
”
Joseph Heller (God Knows)
“
There may be cures to loneliness but marriage is not one of them,
”
”
Christine Schutt (Prosperous Friends)
“
She cured me of my sadness.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
Is sex a cure for loneliness, and if it is, what happens if our body or sexuality is considered deviant or damaged, if we are ill or unblessed with beauty?
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
The cure for loneliness is understanding who we are.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Comfort Book)
“
What the village in the valley offered was a place to heal. It offered company and companionship, in life and at the end of life. It offered a surefire cure for loneliness.
”
”
Louise Penny (A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #18))
“
The cure for loneliness is solitude. —Marianne Moore, from the essay “If I Were Sixteen Today
”
”
Rabih Alameddine (An Unnecessary Woman)
“
Alone"
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
”
”
Maya Angelou
“
People are more likely to fall intensely in love when they are anxious and their self-esteem is lowest.... Feeling inadequate, unhappy, and empty are virtual prerequisites for falling and staying desperately in love; at least temporarily, the ecstasy of desire seems to cure everything that ails you. There is a connection between aversive states of mind -- loneliness, shame, even grief and horror -- and a propensity to feel overwhelming passion; this is one reason why romances blossom in times of war or natural disasters, as well as during the private disasters of our everyday lives.
”
”
Jeanne Safer (The Golden Condom: And Other Essays on Love Lost and Found)
“
Roo: What’s your definition of popularity?
Hutch: I used to think people were popular because they were good-looking, or nice, or funny, or good at sports.
Roo: Aren’t they?
Hutch: I’d think, if I could just be those things, I’d – you know – have more friends than I do. But in seventh grade, when Jackson and those guys stopped hanging out with me, I tried as hard as I could to get them to like me again. But then . . . (shaking his head as if to clear it) I don’t really wanna talk about it.
Roo: What happened?
Hutch: They just did some ugly stuff to me is all. And really, it was for the best.
Roo: Why?
Hutch: Because I was cured. I realized the popular people weren’t nice or funny or great-looking. They just had power, and they actually got the power by teasing people or humiliating them – so people bonded to them out of fear.
Roo: Oh.
Hutch: I didn’t want to be a person who could act like that. I didn’t want to ever speak to any person who could act like that.
Roo: Oh
Hutch: So then I wasn’t trying to be popular anymore.
Roo: Weren’t you lonely?
Hutch: I didn’t say it was fun. (He bites his thumbnail, bonsai dirt and all.) I said it was for the best.
”
”
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
“
When your insides are like skinned knees and curdled milk, you gotta learn how to feel better all by your lonesome, without pills or games or anything like that, or else those bad feelings will just keep coming back.
”
”
Christian McKay Heidicker (Cure for the Common Universe)
“
What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we’re not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people, particularly if we don’t find speaking easy? Is sex a cure for loneliness, and if it is, what happens if our body or sexuality is considered deviant or damaged, if we are ill or unblessed with beauty? And is technology helping with these things? Does it draw us closer together, or trap us behind screens?
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
How I wish to fly with the geese away from dreary November days, the "freeze-up," and cruel winter. Away from loneliness, isolation, and anxiety bred by blizzards. Most every local person I've talked to grudgingly admits to an autumn apprehension. It is part and parcel of an Adirondacker's psychological makeup. The geese contaminate us with this strange depression on their southbound flight and cure us with their northbound. In between, we try to tolerate winter, each in his or her own way.
”
”
Anne LaBastille (Woodswoman I: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness)
“
I am trying to create a stable community in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured... When I am sick with the disease of loneliness, good weather and shimmering skyscrapers do me no good whatsoever, as a writer or as a person. I must be home to do the work I need to do. And yes, home is that house where you no longer live. Home is before, and you live in after.
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
Many of us have moments of weakness when we feel as if our cravings have taken us captive or left us out of control. Sometimes they leave our faith flavorless because we are craving what used to be or what we wish could be. The Bible tells us there is a season for everything, and if we don’t learn to taste each season as it is served, we will end up missing special moments and those life lessons we need to draw closer to God. I love the seasons of love and laughter, but I have discovered that the seasons of loneliness and painful places are when I learn what my faith is for. The best way to season our faith again is to become salt in others’ lives when our own feel lifeless.
”
”
Sheri Rose Shepherd (If You Have a Craving, I Have a Cure: Food, Faith, and Fun to Satisfy Your Deepest Craving)
“
Smartphones and social media were supposed to cure the epidemic of loneliness. We would all be connected—all together, all the time—and none of us would ever feel alone. But the harsh truth is that we can always be lonely, even in a crowd—and now, even more so, in a digital crowd.
”
”
Tony Reinke (12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You)
“
There is always a man eager to explain my mental illness to me. They all do it so confidently, motioning to their Hemingway and Bukowski bookshelf as they compare my depression to their late-night loneliness. There is always someone that rejected them that they equate their sadness to and a bottle of gin (or a song playing, or a movie) close by that they refer to as their cure. Somehow, every soft confession of my Crazy that I hand to them turns into them pulling out pieces of themselves to prove how it really is in my head.
So many dudes I’ve dated have faces like doctors ready to institutionalize
and love my crazy (but only on Friday nights.)
They tell their friends about my impulsive decision making and how I “get them” more than anyone they’ve ever met but leave out my staring off in silence for hours and the self-inflicted bruises on my cheeks.
None of them want to acknowledge a crazy they can’t cure.
They want a crazy that fits well into a trope and gives them a chance to play Hero. And they always love a Crazy that provides them material to write about.
Truth is they love me best as a cigarette cloud of impossibility, with my lipstick applied perfectly and my Crazy only being pulled out when their life needs a little spice.
They don’t want me dirty, having not left my bed for days. Not diseased. Not real.
So they invite me over when they’re going through writer’s block but don’t answer my calls during breakdowns. They tell me I look beautiful when I’m crying then stick their hands in-between my thighs. They mistake my silence for listening to them attentively and say my quiet mouth understands them like no one else has.
These men love my good dead hollowness. Because it means less of a fighting personality for them to force out. And is so much easier to fill someone who has already given up with themselves.
”
”
Lora Mathis
“
Nothing cures depression like a quality jerk-off session in the bathtub, followed by a jog around the block.
”
”
Trevor Carss
“
I can’t cure anyone. I can’t guarantee they will heal. I can only tell them my story, remind them that they are not alone in their journey and offer a glimmer of hope for healing.
”
”
Sharon E. Rainey (The Best Part of My Day Healing Journal)
“
The surest cure for vanity is loneliness.
”
”
Tom Wolfe
“
the fury is easier to feel than fear, loneliness, and sadness. Anger blinds, but it does not cure.
”
”
Marina Vivancos (Honeythorn (Honeythorn, #1))
“
It turns out the things that annoy you in one city are likely more of the same in another, and running doesn’t cure the loneliness like you’d think it would.
”
”
K.M. Neuhold (Four Letter Word (Love Logic, #2))
“
…our lives are short and miserable, but sometimes we can be lucky enough to find someone who cures our loneliness.
”
”
Costanza Casati (Clytemnestra)
“
You know Leda once said that our lives are short and miserable, but sometimes we can be lucky enough to find someone who cures our loneliness.
”
”
Costanza Casati (Clytemnestra)
“
I am scared to look inside me, Except me everyone else is in here, And they said education was the cure, Now of not even one thing that I am sure…
”
”
Piyush Rohankar (Narcissistic Romanticism)
“
It’s a gorgeous oddity of our existence – our loneliness is not caused by being on our own. Indeed, loneliness is best cured with aloneness, which is to say, a meaningful connection to ourselves.
”
”
Sarah Wilson (This One Wild and Precious Life: A Hopeful Path Forward in a Fractured World)
“
he had failed to kill his loneliness, but only made it worse, he had written her, the first one, the one who left him, a letter telling her how he had never been able to kill it. … How when he thought he saw her outside the Regence one time it made him go all faint and sick inside, and that he would follow a woman who looked like her in some way, along the Boulevard, afraid to see it was not she, afraid to lose the feeling it gave him. How every one he had slept with had only made him miss her more. How what she had done could never matter since he knew he could not cure himself of loving her.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway (The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway)
“
It was the rawness and vulnerability of his expression that proved so healing to my own feelings of isolation: the willingness to admit to failure or grief, to let himself be touched, to acknowledge desire, anger, pain, to be emotionally alive. His self-exposure was in itself a cure for loneliness, dissolving the sense of difference that comes when one believes one’s feelings or desires to be uniquely shameful.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
Yet solitude need not be loneliness: it can also be the cure of loneliness. It is not a matter of "learning to live without others," but rather of learning to live with nature and others, not outshouting them with our insistent presence, but being instead ready to see and hear, in love and respect. For, in understanding as in sense perception, it is when we stop speaking that we begin to hear; when we stop staring, things emerge before our eyes; when we stop insisting on our explanations, we can begin to understand. As solitude dissolves the opacity of our collective monad and the dusk lights up the moral sense of life, humans can begin to see.
”
”
Erazim V. Kohák (The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature)
“
I almost thought that marriage was a cure to loneliness, alas! so many are lonely inside marriage. Then I realized it is not marriage that takes the loneliness away, but when both within marriage honour God and the vows made before Him.
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona
“
Love, but not the sensuous fire that burns, scorches and tortures, that inflicts more wounds than it cures—flaring up now, at the next moment being extinguished, leaving behind more coldness and loneliness than was felt before. Rather, love that lies like a soft but firm hand on the ailing beings, ever unchanged in its sympathy, without wavering, unconcerned with any response it meets. Love that is comforting coolness to those who burn with the fire of suffering and passion; that is life-giving warmth to those abandoned in the cold desert of loneliness, to those who are shivering in the frost of a loveless world; to those whose hearts have become as if empty and dry by the repeated calls for help, by deepest despair.
”
”
Nyanaponika Thera (The Four Sublime States and the Practice of Loving Kindness (Metta))
“
There is no hurry in heaven, No time runs up there, Even the Gods have a disease, Boredom they say. Live, please don’t leave, No river of wine flows up there, No water too pure to cure your sins, No land too holy to die for, Live, don’t leave…
”
”
Piyush Rohankar (Narcissistic Romanticism)
“
Kurt Vonnegut was really good at seeing into the future. Way back in 1974, he wrote, “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
What should young people do with their lives?' That's a good question, and the writer Kurt Vonnegut once came up with a good answer.
'Many things, obviously,' he said. 'But the most daring is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
”
”
Billy Baker (We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends)
“
Whenever I get so lonesome that my chest starts to ache, I open a book and read. I’ve found that reading cures nearly everything: boredom, loneliness, even anger. What’s great about books is that they’re reliable; they’re safe. Life changes, but the words in the books stay the same.
”
”
McCaid Paul (Sweet Tea & Snap Peas)
“
There were things that burned away at me, not only as a private individual, but also as a citizen of our century, our pixelated age. What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we’re not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people, particularly if we don’t find speaking easy? Is sex a cure for loneliness, and if it is, what happens if our body or sexuality is considered deviant or damaged, if we are ill or unblessed with beauty? And is technology helping with these things? Does it draw us closer together, or trap us behind screens?
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
When she dies, you are not at first surprised. Part of love is preparing for death. You feel confirmed in your love when she dies. You got it right. This is part of it all.
Afterward comes the madness. And then the loneliness: not the spectacular solitude you had anticipated, not the interesting martyrdom of widowhood, but just loneliness. You expect something almost geological-- vertigo in a shelving canyon -- but it's not like that; it's just misery as regular as a job. What do we doctors say? I'm deeply sorry, Mrs Blank; there will of course be a period of mourning but rest assured you will come out of it; two of these each evening, I would suggest; perhaps a new interst, Mrs Blank; can maintenance, formation dancing?; don't worry, six months will see you back on the roundabout; come and see me again any time; oh nurse, when she calls, just give her this repeat will you, no I don't need to see her, well it's not her that's dead is it, look on the bright side. What did she say her name was?
And then it happens to you. There's no glory in it. Mourning is full of time; nothing but time.... you should eat stuffed sow's heart. I might yet have to fall back on this remedy. I've tried drink, but what does that do? Drink makes you drunk, that's all it's ever been able to do. Work, they say, cures everything. It doesn't; often, it doesn't even induce tiredness: the nearest you get to it is a neurotic lethargy. And there is always time. Have some more time. Take your time. Extra time. Time on your hands.
Other people think you want to talk. 'Do you want to talk about Ellen?' they ask, hinting that they won't be embarrassed if you break down. Sometimes you talk, sometimes you don't; it makes little difference. The word aren't the right ones; or rather, the right words don't exist. 'Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.' You talk, and you find the language of bereavement foolishly inadequate. You seem to be talking about other people's griefs. I loved her; we were happy; I miss her. She didn't love me; we were unhappy; I miss her. There is a limited choice of prayers on offer: gabble the syllables.
And you do come out of it, that's true. After a year, after five. But your don't come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the Downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.
”
”
Julian Barnes (Flaubert's Parrot)
“
We ran our brokenness against each other, in pure abandon. I knew you weren’t in it for the long run. I could feel it in the yearning of our bodies, the way our skin merged with desperation over and over, the way we held on too tight. I knew you weren’t the answer to my loneliness or the cure for all that ailed me, but you changed my life.
You helped me realize that I could love again.
And for that I am thankful.
So thankful.
”
”
Jacqueline Simon Gunn
“
Yet solitude need not be loneliness: it can also be the cure of loneliness. It is not a matter of “learning to live without others,” but rather of learning to live with nature and others, not outshouting them with our insistent presence, but being instead ready to see and hear, in love and respect. For, in understanding as in sense perception, it is when we stop speaking that we begin to hear; when we stop staring, things emerge before our eyes; when we stop insistingon our explanations, we can begin to understand. As solitude dissolves the opacity of our collective monad and the dusk lights up the moral sense of life, humans can begin to see.
”
”
Erazim V. Kohák (The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature)
“
Here is the voice of my main Character in my Talon book series, I’ll let her introduce herself to you:
My name is Matica and I am a special needs child with a growth disability. I am stuck in the body of a two year old, even though I am ten years old when my story begins in the first book of the Talon series, TALON, COME FLY WITH ME. Because of that disability, (I am saying ‘that’ disability, not ‘my’ disability because it’s a thing that happens to me, nothing more and because I am not accepting it as something bad. I can say that now after I learned to cope with it.) I was rejected by the local Indians as they couldn’t understand that that condition is not a sickness and so it can’t be really cured. It’s just a disorder of my body.
But I never gave up on life and so I had lots of adventures roaming around the plateau where we live in Peru, South America, with my mother’s blessings. But after I made friends with my condors I named Tamo and Tima, everything changed. It changed for the good. I was finally loved. And I am the hero and I embrace my problem. In better words: I had embraced my problem before I made friends with my condors Tamo and Tima. I held onto it and I felt sorry for myself and cried a lot, wanting to run away or something worse. But did it help me? Did it become better? Did I grow taller? No, nothing of that helped me.
I didn’t have those questions when I was still in my sorrow, but all these questions came to me later, after I was loved and was cherished. One day I looked up into the sky and saw the majestic condors flying in the air. Here and now, I made up my mind. I wanted to become friends with them. I believed if I could achieve that, all my sorrow and rejection would be over.
And true enough, it was over. I was loved. I even became famous. And so, if you are in a situation, with whatever your problem is, find something you could rely on and stick to it, love that and do with that what you were meant to do. And I never run from conflicts.
”
”
Gigi Sedlmayer
“
For so long, maybe all my life, I thought only a house could make you whole. I thought I was nothing without an interesting address. I thought I was only as good as my color scheme, my drawer pulls, my floors....it's the knowledge that a house can be as fragile as life itself. You'd think it would be stronger, since it can stand in one spot for centuries while generations of humans run through its rooms, grow up, move out, and eventually die. But a house is an inherently limited entity. It can't do everything, or even most things. It cannot give you a personality. It cannot bring you love. It cannot cure loneliness. It can provide comfort, safety, a sense of pride--that much I know.
”
”
Meghan Daum (Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House)
“
Science journalism’s express goal was to hang over the writer’s mind a veil so opaque that the reader would mistake the writer’s thoughts about the world for the world itself—the world as seen from an impossible God’s-eye view, a paradigm of objectivity and at the same time a lie. For me, hiding the writer’s thoughts strips writing of its greatest gift: its ability to grant us access to other minds. Writing has the potential to be magical because it lets us see the one thing we can never see; it opens our eyes to that feature of the world that is most profoundly invisible. Writing is the rock we can kick to refute our loneliness, to cure the claustrophobia that comes from being trapped inside a one-sided mind.
”
”
Amanda Gefter (Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything)
“
A Woman’s Only Flaw Author Unknown
“When God created Woman, he was working late on the sixth day. An Angel came by and asked, ‘Why spend so much time on her?’ The Lord answered, ‘Have you seen all the specifications I have to meet to shape her?’” “‘She must function in all kinds of situations. She must be able to embrace several kids at the same time, have a hug that can heal anything from a bruised knee to a broken heart. She must do all this with only two hands.
She cures herself when sick and can work 18 hours a day.’”
“The Angel was impressed. ‘Just two hands? Impossible! And this is the standard model?’ The Angel came closer and touched the woman. ‘But you have made her so soft, Lord.’ ‘She is soft,’ said the Lord, ‘but I have made her strong. You can’t imagine what she can endure and overcome.’” “‘Can she think?’ the Angel asked.
The Lord answered, ‘Not only can she think, she can reason and negotiate.’ The Angel touched her cheeks. ‘Lord, it seems this creation is leaking! You have put too many burdens on her.’ ‘She is not leaking. It is a tear,’ the Lord corrected the Angel. ‘What’s it for?’ asked the Angel.
The Lord said, ‘Tears are her way of expressing her grief, her doubts, her love, her loneliness, her suffering, and her pride.’” “This made a big impression on the Angel. ‘Lord, you are a genius. You thought of everything. A woman is indeed marvelous.’ The Lord said, ‘Indeed she is. She has strength that amazes a man. She can handle trouble and carry heavy burdens. She holds happiness, love, and opinions. ‘She smiles when she feels like screaming. She sings when she feels like crying, cries when happy and laughs when afraid. She fights for what she believes in. ‘Her love is unconditional. Her heart is broken when a next-of-kin or a friend dies, but she finds strength to get on with life. “The Angel asked, ‘So she is a perfect being?’
The Lord replied, ‘No. She has just one drawback.’
‘She often forgets what she is worth.
”
”
Leslie Braswell (Bitch Up! Expect More, Get More: A Woman’s Guide to Maintaining Her Power and Sanity After a Breakup)
“
Woman: Wow-Man!
A woman is an exclamation mark on the work of creation! When all was said and done, GOD made her — the crescendo of all that was created.
A woman is the solution to the first problem GOD identified in man: loneliness. Loneliness is like sin, in
that it can alter the entire existence of a man — it can reduce a man, full of significance, to absolute nothing. For sin, GOD gave Jesus. For loneliness, GOD gave Woman!
A woman is a multiplier effect. Shewill take any little and make it a great nation. She incubates dreams, broods over them, stretches them and expands them beyond your wildest dreams.
A good woman is a secret weapon. You are better because of her. She increases you just by reason of being there. It’s so clearly stated “He who finds a wife - the one who has a woman on his side - finds a good thing and automatically obtains favors from
the Lord.
You must love on her, be sweet to her, care for her, respect her, involve her, honor her, give her room, be patient with her, be good to her, be kind to her and watch your life completely blossom with beauty.
Woman, you are a wonder! Own it, love it, honor it, feel wonderful because of it, walk in beauty because of it, shine brighter because of it.
”
”
TemitOpe Ibrahim
“
It’s a gorgeous oddity of our existence – our loneliness is not caused by being on our own. Indeed, loneliness is best cured with aloneness, which is to say, a meaningful connection to ourselves. Moral loneliness is when the supply cord to connection, caring and doing the right thing by each other and the planet has been severed. We can’t tap into the point of life, to what matters. When you don’t know your true north, the disorientation is terrifying. You are suspended in a vague and directionless vastness.
The Greeks argued that this kind of moral loneliness led to acedia – a state of spiritual apathy or listless sloth. The 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas described it as “the sorrow of the world”, this moral “asleepness.” As I ventured into the early stages of this journey, I quickly realized it was at the root of our disconnect from this one wild and precious life we’d been granted. And that we’d be revisiting it many times over. It’s an evolutionary response to shut down and go numb like this. When we can’t fight or flee from a horrible threat, we lie down and play dead – we freeze.
Of course, freezing or numbing out can work as a survival trick for a while, but if we remain asleep, particularly as a society, we face our collective demise.
”
”
Sarah Wilson (This One Wild and Precious Life: A Hopeful Path Forward in a Fractured World)
“
No matter how narrow our perceptions become in the daily obsessions of the organization, there is no such thing as a life lived only within an organization. There are other necessities calling us to a much greater participation than any corporation can offer. The most efficiently run, streamlined organization, the best-groomed, most-organized executive is interwoven with the ragged vagaries of creation, and despite our best attempts to anchor ourselves in the concrete foundations of profitability and permanence, we remain forever at the whim, mercy, and pleasure of the wind-blown world.
Ironically, we bring more vitality into our organizations when we refuse to make their goals the measure of our success and start to ask about the greater goals they might serve, and when we stop looking to them as parents who will supply necessities we can only obtain when we wrestle directly with our own destiny.
In a sense, we place the same burdens on our organizational life as we place on the rest of our existence. We feel there is something wrong at the center of it all, and we have to put it right. We are forever looking for a cure for our ills. We do this by placing ourselves in the position of manager, of thus managing change. Unless it is managed, something is wrong. But our real unconscious and underlying wish is to find a cure for the impermanence of life, and for that there is no remedy. Most of the difficulties we confront at work are no different from those human beings have been dealing with for millenia. Life is full of loneliness, failure, grief, and loss to an extent that terrifies us, and we will do anything to will ourselves another existence.
”
”
David Whyte (The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America)
“
Loneliness, you see, is not always cured by simply being with another person like a lover or a friend, but is healed instead by a feeling and a sense of purpose that you are worthy and needed in this life, and that you are making a difference to others who need you. It’s a feeling that you are living your true worth and that you are making the most of your time here and not just existing and watching the world go by without you.
”
”
Emma Heatherington (A Miracle on Hope Street)
“
Questions
When she asked me out for coffee,
I knew she was different.
Her words were funny but lonely.
Her eyes nervously asked questions.
I was looking into a murky well,
but I couldn't turn away.
Sometimes I wish I could take her away.
We could walk a beach sipping coffee,
and she'd laugh and feel really well
and not start crying. She'd be different.
No one would ask me questions
about being with someone so weird, lonely.
'Save me,' she whispers. It makes me lonely.
My life before that first day seems far away.
Her cutting habit scares me. I ask questions
so maybe she can say what hurts. I offer coffee
with lots of sugar and milk, something different.
She dries her smudged eyes, sighs, 'Oh, well.'
I wish we could hold hands by a rock well
and fling in her thorny wounds, fears, loneliness.
Maybe things with her will never be different.
Maybe I need to pack up and run far away,
but then tomorrow, alone, she'd drink bitter coffee
again, and I'd be asking myself what-if questions.
My counselor asks me confusing questions
about whether I can cure her, make her well,
and what if I hadn't gone out for that first coffee,
can I really save anyone but me. 'But she's so lonely,'
I say, 'and I love her and can't just turn away.'
I even pray that she'll wake up smiling, different.
My family says, 'Think of college, a new different
life, a clean start.' Maybe a roommate will question
my politics, sign us up for a trip to the mountains far away.
Can, should I, forget her, and focus just on me? Well,
I'd miss her too, digging into my skin, lonely
for what I provide, warmth and not just in the coffee.
People say I don't look well, I stopped coffee,
but the broken questions just replay, won't go away.
I want to be different even if I'm lonely.
”
”
Pat Mora (Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love)
“
Loneliness is not cured by human company.loneliness is cured by contact with reality,by understanding that we don't need people.
”
”
Anthony de Mello
“
Your attitude toward other people can have a big effect on your health. Being lonely increases the risk of everything from heart attacks to dementia, depression and death, whereas people who are satisfied with their social lives sleep better, age more slowly and respond better to vaccines. The effect is so strong that curing loneliness is as good for your health as giving up smoking, according to John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago, Illinois, who has spent his career studying the effects of social isolation.
”
”
Jeremy Webb (Nothing: Surprising Insights Everywhere from Zero to Oblivion)
“
the cure to loneliness lay in feline companionship
”
”
Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune)
“
Children often think the cure for their childhood pain and emotional loneliness lies in finding a way to change themselves and other people into something other than what they really are. Healing fantasies all have that theme. Therefore, everyone’s healing fantasy begins with If only… For instance, people may think they’d be loved if only they were selfless or attractive enough, or if only they could find a sensitive, selfless partner.
”
”
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
“
Loneliness was a disease. A matchmaker was its cure, salvation, and babysitter.
”
”
Roselle Lim (Sophie Go's Lonely Hearts Club)
“
Loneliness is a horrifying disease that doesn't have a lot of options for its cure.
”
”
Bella Coronel (a Constellation of Almosts)
“
Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality, by understanding that we don’t need people.—ANTHONY DE MELLO
”
”
Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
“
Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality, by understanding that we don’t need people. — ANTHONY DE MELLO Once you realize you don’t actually need anyone, you can start enjoying people’s company.
”
”
Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
“
Steven Cole says that the best cure for loneliness or disconnection is to combine a sense of mission and purpose in your life with community engagement. Spending time in service marries connection with deep fulfillment, and the result is a boost in health. Prosocial behavior, including volunteering, has also been shown to boost our immune system, combat the physical stress caused by loneliness, and extend our longevity. Sadly, says Cole, these days too many of us have actually dialed back our engagement with others to pursue individual health-enhancing goals, like training for a triathlon, taking yoga classes, or trying to find our “one true love.” Those things are all great, but the biggest benefit for all comes when, as Cole describes it, your health is a “means to an end, which is, essentially, to make some meaningful stuff happen, not just for you but for others.” What
”
”
Jay Shetty (8 Rules of Love: How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go)
“
There are certain things in life, not very many, that are real, confirmed cures for rainy days, for loneliness. Puzzles are like that. We each have to solve our own.
”
”
Iain Reid (I'm Thinking of Ending Things)
“
Rose had read somewhere that loneliness hurt more than a broken arm. There wasn't a cast or a pill or surgery that could heal it. Although she'd never thought about it before, she knew what they said was true. And even though there was a cure, everyone walked around like there was no medicine for it.
”
”
Juliette Rose Kerr (To Fill a Jar With Water)