Quill / Moments / Quotes for feeling lonely
Quotes for feeling lonely
Something funny happened on the bus and you got your phone out to tell someone, then sat looking at the list of names. You've worked from home all week and your voice sounds odd when you order a coffee.
This is common, including for people who look busy, and making friends as an adult is slow for nearly everybody. Those who've come through a move to a new city tend to mention the same dull things. A class or a volunteer shift that repeats every week. Telling old friends they've moved. Working from a busy library to be near people, with no need to talk to them.
These lines are good company for a Friday night in. They'll never suggest it's your fault, and they don't claim being alone is secretly better.
The moments
- Friday evening with nothing planned
- The first few weeks in a new city
- A table for one
- Friends' group photos from a weekend you weren't at
- An invitation sent, and no reply
- Coming home to a quiet flat
- A whole working day without using your voice
What people say helps
- Something that repeats every week, so faces become familiar
- Telling old friends and family about the move
- Working from a busy library or café
- Letting it take as long as it takes
“Just put yourself out there” and “be happy alone” both make loneliness sound like something you could have avoided.
Quill Originals are written by Quill. Popular sayings are widely repeated lines with no name attached. Lines with a name are checked word for word against public-domain books.
Quill Originals
Ill and alone is the worst. Ask a neighbour if you need something.
You don't have to be charming. Turning up does a lot.
Same bus, same faces. Say morning.
Tell someone back home it's been hard. They'd want to know.
You've made friends before. Those skills are still in there.
Everyone who moved here once ate alone in that flat.
Takeaway and a film is a real evening.
Nobody's asking you to make peace with this.
Nobody enjoys the first night at anything.
A walk is an easy thing to ask anyone.
Key in the door is the hard part of the day.
A postcard to an old friend takes five minutes.
Walking the same park each week makes it yours.
Go first. It's an awkward job and someone has to.
Group photo, no you. Sore, and no reflection on you.
You can be the one who invites. Nobody's assigned that role.
Being lonely means you know what company's worth.
A chat at the till counts.
Everyone laughing in that pub had a first month here.
Museums are excellent on your own.
Say yes to the dull invitation. A dull evening with people has its uses.
You asked. That was the brave bit.
Popular sayings
A problem shared is a problem halved.
Reach out.
It's okay to ask for help.
From the books
Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence.
Read the passage around this line
The touch of the nameless days clings to my heart like mosses round the old tree. 107 The echo mocks her origin to prove she is the original. 108 God is ashamed when the prosperous boasts of His special favour. 109 I cast my own shadow upon my path, because I have a lamp that has not been lighted. 110 Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence. 111 That which ends in exhaustion is death, but the perfect ending is in the endless. 112 The sun has his simple robe of light. The clouds are decked with gorgeousness. 113 The hills are like shouts of children who raise their arms, trying to catch stars.
Every man has a history worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we could draw it from him.
Read the passage around this line
… mystics, assured me that nobody and nothing of possible interest was left in England,—he had brought all that was alive away. I was forced to reply: “No, next door to you, probably, on the other side of the partition in the same house, was a greater man than any you had seen.” Every man has a history worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we could draw it from him. Character and wit have their own magnetism. Send a deep man into any town, and he will find another deep man there, unknown hitherto to his neighbors. That is the great happiness of life,—to add to our high acquaintances. The very law of averages might have assured you that …
Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy?
Read the passage around this line
… with, how can life be worth living, to use the words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which is to be found in the mutual good-will of a friend? What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not some one to feel them even more acutely than yourself. In a word, other objects of ambition serve for particular ends—riches for use, power for securing homage, office for reputation, pleasure for …
The comfort of life depends upon conversation.
Book friends are always at our service, never annoy us, rasp or nettle us.
Infinite is the help man can yield to man.
Your friend is your needs answered.
We have all our burdens to bear.
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