How glorious it is -- and also how painful -- to be an exception.

How glorious it is -- and also how painful -- to be an exception.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. - Among My Books, 1870.

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. - Among My Books, 1870.

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone. - read more

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone. - The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950.

Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.

Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent read more

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.

I'm still the little southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks who really didn't feel like she belonged.

I'm still the little southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks who really didn't feel like she belonged.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy read more

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet. - Lacon, 1825.