Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently. - My Summer in read more

Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently. - My Summer in a Garden.

We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire. - Journal, read more

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire. - Journal, December, 1900.

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.

Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude. read more

Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude. - Essays and Soliloquies, 1924.

Silence is one great art of conversation.

Silence is one great art of conversation.

No matter how close to yours another's steps have grown, in the end there is one dance you'll do alone.

No matter how close to yours another's steps have grown, in the end there is one dance you'll do alone.

Solitude is the playfield of Satan. - Pale Fire, 1962.

Solitude is the playfield of Satan. - Pale Fire, 1962.

Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars read more

Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.