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"I'm still lonely and it's a glorification of something I'm not finished with. I don't want to be distracted from my work by other people, but the absence of it all distracts me from my work and that's why I run towards the city, to get a little glimpse of it."
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"A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it."

"When you understand that through the power of conversion in solitude you can become great, so many things you've been wasting your time on will no longer interest you. You will even run away from some friends."

"It was a different sense of isolation from what he normally felt in Japan. And not such a bad feeling, he decided. Being alone in two senses of the word was maybe like a double negation of isolation. In other words, it made perfect sense for him, a foreigner, to feel isolated here. The thought calmed him. He was in exactly the right place."

"I like the idea of living in a city - any city, especially a strange one - like the thought of traffic and crowds, of working in a bookstore, waiting tables in a coffee shop, who knew what kind of odd, solitary life I might slip into? Meals alone, waling the dogs in the evenings; and nobody knowing who I was."

"Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others."

"The people that I liked and had not met went to the big cafes because they were lost in them and no one noticed them and they could be alone in them and be together."

"He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon."

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than to be crowded on a velvet cushion."

"I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it's good for me."
Explore more quotes by Charlotte Eriksson

"I took him to the river and said "let's watch something drown, So he took a stoneand I took my necklaceand we threw it all together,the way I always think I will get better in July. Things will change and sounds won't acheand I gave my heart to uncertainty so many times, and so I took him to the river,threw the necklace in the river to slowly watch it drown, or burn, or fade awaylike I've done so many times."

"I am slowly coming to the conclusion that it's more important to learn to work with what you've got, under the circumstances you've been given, than wishing for different ones."

"So I forced myself to step out of my comfort zone and go out and connect with people. I realised that no one knew me here. I could become whoever I wanted to be for these people, and that became my courage."

"There are very few friends that will lie down with you on empty streets in the middle of the night, without a word. No questions, no asking why, just quietly lay there with you, observing the stars, until you're ready to get back up on your feet again and walk the last bit home, softly holding your hand as a quiet way of saying "I'm here.It was a beautiful night."

"I spent days and nights staring at the blank page, searching the deepest corners of my mind: who have I been, what have I seen, what did I learn? I thought about all the nights I've spent outside, all the times I laid down to cry and how I took a deep breath every morning and decided to simply go on. Because what else is there to do? Decide that this is it? I quit, I'm done? Oh if I could find words to justify those feelings I've carried. I could write the thickest of books with explosions of emotions from a young girl's lost heart. I could make you see, make you hear, make you feel, at least a tiny fragment of what's out there."

"Great growth comes from loneliness. You have time to develop, dwell in your own mind and go a bit mad. All great people are a bit mad. That's good to remember. Don't escape it. Great growth comes from time spent in foreign lands, watching foreign people with foreign cultures. It makes you forget about your own land and race and town for a while. Great growth also comes from rooting yourself into one place from time to time. Unpack your bags, get a nice bed, a book shelf, some friends. Learn to show up, keep in touch, stick around. Growth comes in all sort of forms and shapes, everywhere at all times, and it's yours to take and consume. Do what ought to be done. Here and now, to get you somewhere - anywhere."

"You need to belong to yourself, and let others belong to themselves too. You need to be free and detached from things and your surroundings. You need to build your home in your own simple existence, not in friends, lovers, your career or material belongings, because these are things you will lose one day."

"And this is what being an artist means, being a poet? To sacrifice yourself for your art, sacrifice your heart for your art, because it's only through something broken that something beautiful can grow."
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