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The more we speak of solitude, the clearer it becomes that at the bottom it is not something one can choose to take or leave. We are lonely. One can d...more

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I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Becaus...more

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I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.

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That’s love: Two lonely persons keep each other safe and touch each other and talk to each other.

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Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic orders? And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength ...more

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That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamb...more

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To retreat into oneself and meet nobody for hours on end—that is what one must be able to attain. To be alone, as one was alone as a child, when the g...more

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[A]t bottom, and just in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone, and for one person to be able to advise or even help another...more

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The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseas...more

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Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while ...more

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So don't be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must thin...more

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perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys

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Great sadnesses … they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything...more

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so much is happening now; you must be patient like someone who is sick, and confident like someone who is recovering; for perhaps you are both. And mo...more

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How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn int...more