Being Alone With Your Thoughts Is Not Being Alone, Not Really

30 Quotes To Convince You It’s True

Wren Wright
4 min readAug 18, 2022
Photo by NASA on Unsplash

When I was a kid, I’d spend as much time as I could reading in my upstairs bedroom. So much so that when my parents thought I needed to be disciplined, they made me sit on the living room couch and watch television with them and my three younger siblings.

I hated it. Even back then I was an INTP.

I was a good kid and could never figure out what I’d done wrong. They refused to tell me.

So on the couch I sat, arms crossed, pouting, thinking how stupid it was to watch TV when there were so many interesting things to read about.

Even now I prefer to spend much of my time alone in my study, reading or writing or creating art or otherwise being engrossed in what I consider to be my opulent inner life.

So let’s celebrate aloneness with 30 quotes about it

1. Being alone has a power that very few people can handle. — Steven Aitchison

2. What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be. — Ellen Burstyn

3. I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone. — Lord Byron

4. Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone. — Charlie Chaplin

5. If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself. — Paulo Coelho

6. Your life will get better when you realize it’s better to be alone than to chase people who don’t really care about you. — Thema Davis

7. I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be left alone.’ There is all the difference. — Greta Garbo

8. Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone. — Elizabeth Gilbert

9. Truth is, I’m generally happiest when it’s just me. It’s okay to be madly in love with yourself. — Richelle E. Goodrich

10. There are some places in life where you can only go alone. Embrace the beauty of your solo journey. —Mandy Hale

11. I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone. — Audrey Hepburn

12. As a body everyone is single, as a soul never. — Hermann Hesse

13. I finally faced the fact that it isn’t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems. — Whitney Houston

14. I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. — Frida Kahlo

15. I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone. — Daniel Keyes

16. Being solitary is being alone well — being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement. — Alice Koller

17. If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts. — Thomas Merton

18. I restore myself when I’m alone. — Marilyn Monroe

19. And if you couldn’t be loved, the next best thing was to be let alone. — — — L.M. Montgomery

20. To go out with the setting sun on an empty beach is to truly embrace your solitude. — Jeanne Moreau

21. Loneliness is sad, aloneness is blissful. — Osho

22. Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them — Jodi Picoult

23. I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. — Rainer Maria Rilke

24. Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self. — May Sarton

25. All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot! — Dr. Seuss

26. My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude. — Warsan Shire

27. I love to be alone. I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. — Henry David Thoreau

28. Language… has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone. — Paul Tillich

29. The longer one is alone, the easier it is to hear the song of the earth. — — — Robert Anton Wilson

30. Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around. — — — — Richard Yates

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And if you really, really liked it, you might want to check out my ebook, The Grapes of Dementia: My Journey of Love, Loss, Surrender, and Gratitude, available worldwide through Amazon.

Book cover design by Wren Wright, photo by Donna Clement, graphics design support by Luis H. Ruiz.

If you’re interested in tarot card readings focusing on personal development, check out my other Medium page — Wren Reads Tarot.

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Wren Wright

Writing mostly to heal myself from life; sharing in hopes you’ll find some of it helpful. Also books, personal development, and anything else I’m drawn to.