You are not the only one.
By Helen Luc — Written on Oct 22, 2020
Loneliness can hit at the most random times. You can be out with friends or waking up in the morning getting ready for your day, and then — bam! You realize you’re lonely.
To help you realize that you're not alone, we’ve gathered some loneliness quotes that perfectly describe the experience of feeling misunderstood or isolated — because just knowing that you’re not alone in feeling the way you do will make you feel so much better and help get you back up if you’re feeling down.
If you’re like some people and you're chronically lonely, then that can be telling of a more serious condition, like depression.
When you’re lonely, you feel isolated and empty or dissatisfied with your friendships or relationships. All of us are familiar with this feeling — plenty of us feel lonely after breakups — but if you’re the rare person who's never experienced it, then you should consider yourself pretty dang lucky.
Feeling lonely doesn’t necessarily mean you're alone. You can have an active social life and constantly be around people and still feel isolated or alienated.
Loneliness strikes if you feel like you don’t have meaningful bonds with others or if you constantly feel misunderstood. Feeling this way sucks, but it’s something that a lot of people can relate to.
1. "Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better." —Henry Rollins
2. “It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” — George Washington
3. “If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.” — Jean-Paul Sartre
4. “If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.” — Maxwell Maltz
5. "The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly." —F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. “I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference.” — Greta Garbo
7. “It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone — so far.” — Marilyn Monroe
8. “You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with.” — Wayne Dyer
9. "Loneliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best you can do is know yourself; know what you want." —Janet Fitch
10. “You come into the world alone and you go out of the world alone yet it seems to me you are more alone while living than even going and coming.” — Emily Carr
11. “I restore myself when I'm alone.” — Marilyn Monroe
12. “Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.” — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
13. "Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness." —Maya Angelou
14. “Yes, I guess you could say I am a loner, but I feel more lonely in a crowded room with boring people than I feel on my own.” — Henry Rollins
15. “The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.” — Albert Camus
16. “Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I'm most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.” — Anne Hathaway
17. "I’m lonely. And I’m lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares me... to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic." —Augusten Burroughs
18. “What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.” — Ellen Burstyn
19. “To live alone is the fate of all great souls.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
20. “Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.” — Charlie Chaplin
21. “Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.” — Dag Hammarskjold
22. “When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.” — Tennessee Williams
23. "Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man." —Thomas Wolfe
24. “You're only lonely if you're not there for you.” — Phil McGraw
25. “The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.” — Douglas Coupland
26. “I never feel lonely if I've got a book — they're like old friends. Even if you're not reading them over and over again, you know they are there. And they're part of your history. They sort of tell a story about your journey through life.” — Emilia Fox
27. “Success is nothing if you don't have the right people to share it with; you're just gonna end up lonely.” — Selena Gomez
28. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you lonely." ―Charles M. Schulz
29. “We can never be afraid to stand up for what is right, no matter what others may say. And sometimes, if that means taking a lonely road, if what we are standing for is true, then perhaps moonlight or sunshine will light our way and make it less lonely.” — Pramila Jayapal
30. “Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness. The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are.” — Tom Hanks
31. “Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.” — Paul Tournier
32. "We’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we’ve never even met?" —David Foster Wallace
33. “Wherever you are in the world, whoever you are with, sometimes you feel desperately lonely.” — Vanessa Kirby
34. “What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you.” — Richard Wilbur
35. “I like the idea of being alone. I like the idea of often being alone in all aspects of my life. I like to feel lonely. I like to need things.” — Robert Plant
36. "Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room." —Douglas Coupland
37. “When we don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend, we always say, 'Oh, I'm so lonely. I want a date,' or something like that. But I think the biggest love we're all searching for is the love for one's self.” — RM
38. “The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.” — Lorraine Hansberry
39. “When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, Wretched, bored, dejected; only here's the rub, my darling dear, I feel the same when you're near.” — Samuel Hoffenstein
40. “If you are afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right.” — Jules Renard
41. "I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness." ―Anaïs Nin
42. “What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your native tongue, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to anticipate the promise of the children. This tragic fate is indeed the plight of someone somewhere roughly every two weeks.” — Wade Davis
43. “If you have a good inner life, you don't get lonely. I've got a good imagination. I don't miss romance.” — Diana Rigg
44. “We're born alone. We do need each other. It's lonely to really effectively live your life, and anyone you can get help from or give help to; that's part of your obligation.” — Bill Murray
45. “There's no story if there isn't some conflict. The memorable things are usually not how pulled together everybody is. I think everybody feels lonely and trapped sometimes. I would think it's more or less the norm.” — Wes Anderson
46. "I’m so scared of dying without ever being really seen. Can you understand?" —David Foster Wallace
47. “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.” — Carl Sagan
48. “Who knows what true loneliness is — not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.” —Joseph Conrad
49. "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
50. “The road had the lonely times, but I kept myself busy.” — Buck Owens
51. “No one really wants to admit they are lonely, and it is never really addressed very much between friends and family. But I have felt lonely many times in my life.” — Bill Murray
52. “I have so many different personalities in me and I still feel lonely.” — Tori Amos
53. “I naturally have a me-against-the-world mentality, and I've been fighting it since I was 13. It's felt like it's only gotten me in lonely, angry places.” — Timothee Chalamet
54. “Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so.” — Robert Frost
55. "He says he’s lonely, horribly lonely because of this love he feels for her. She says she’s lonely too. She doesn’t say why." ― Marguerite Duras
56. “I've sold my soul for freedom. It's lonely but it's sweet.” — Melissa Etheridge
57. “We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true.”— Sherry Turkle
58. “Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.” — Tecumseh
59. “The lonely become either thoughtful or empty.” — Mason Cooley
60. “It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.” — Albert Einstein
61. "Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony." ― Douglas Coupland
62. "Beauty is ever to the lonely mind a shadow fleeting; she is never plain. She is a visitor who leaves behind the gift of grief, the souvenir of pain.” — Christopher Morley
63. “You'll always feel lonely if you always need validation. People don't like to be around those kinds of people.” — Sherry Turkle
64. “A life without a lonely place, that is, without a quiet center, becomes destructive.” — Henri Nouwen
65. “I'm the kind of person who likes to be lonely. I got my head down and focused on getting fit.” — Michael Essien
66. “Unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely.” — Mortimer Adler
67. "How lonely it is here, and how well it suits you." —Franz Kafka
68. “The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all.” — Douglas Coupland
69. “I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, 'No, I won't do it, I won't behave his way anymore. I'm lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,' and then you do it.” — Leo Buscaglia
70. “When I'm alone in my hotel room in some foreign place, I feel very lonely. Then I tuck into my favourite chocolate — Chuckles or Whispers — for some comfort.” — Chad le Clos
71. “I would say, 'I'm alone, but I'm not lonely.' But I was just kidding myself.” — Bruce Willis
72. “Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.” — Martha Beck
73. "Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?" ―Haruki Murakami
74. “It takes so much strength to say to your ego, 'You know what? You're going to keep me lonely, so I have to ignore you.'” — George Michael
75. “I don't have time to be lonely. And I get fearful of relationships because I feel guilty about wanting someone to be completely faithful and loyal, when I can't even give them 10 percent of the attention that they need. It's just the reality of my time, my life, my schedule.” — Rihanna
76. “People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.” — Anton Chekhov
77. “No one has it easy, and to some degree, everyone feels lonely and powerless, which may cause them to make hurtful decisions.” — Max Joseph
78. “Yes, I do seek solitude, but I am never lonely.” — Ruskin Bond
79. "You want to ask, am I lonely? Well, of course, lonely as a woman driving across country day after day, leaving behind mile after mile little towns she might have stopped and lived and died in." —Adrienne Rich
80. “I think, as you're growing up, your emotions are just as deep as they are when you're an adult. Your ability to feel lonely, longing, confused, or angry are just as deep. We don't feel things more as we get older.” — Spike Jonze
81. “It's a terrible feeling being lonely.” — Rita Ora
82. “I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.” — Paul Theroux
83. “There's no such thing as a crowded battlefield. Battlefields are lonely places.” — Alfred M. Gray
84. “If we don't know how to be alone, we'll only know how to be lonely.” — Sherry Turkle
85. "Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right." ―Charles Bukowski
86. “I'm not lonely, and I think that has a lot to do with what's on my bedside table rather than what's in my bed.” — Michelle Williams
87. “If I want to believe that life is lonely and that nobody loves me, then that is what I will find in my world.” — Louise L. Hay
88. “In the lonely hours, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about eternal things.” — Joseph B. Wirthlin
89. “People will occasionally ask me if I understand what it's like to be lonely. And the truth is I don't, because for me, solitariness is a blessing, a gift. Me, I get on fine with myself.” —John Burnside
90. “Too many of us are lonely ministers practicing a lonely ministry.” — Henri Nouwen
91. "I was very often full of rage and despair. I was always lonely. In spite of all that I was and am in love with life." —Jeanette Winterson
92. “I spent a huge amount of time by myself. I daydreamed and learned how to be alone and not be lonely.” — Rachel Kushner
93. “I think that there is an element where leadership is lonely, but I also believe that it doesn't have to be like that.” — Alicia Garza
94. “I love single life! Why would it be boring? I mean, I get to travel around and have loads of girls screaming at me, so it's definitely not boring. However, it can get lonely on the road, but I'm sorted I've got good people around me.” — Olly Murs
95. “For whoever is lonely there is a tavern.” — Georg Trakl
96. “Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way.” — Edna Ferber
97. "All great and precious things are lonely." ―John Steinbeck
98. “I think everybody gets lonely sometimes. I don't know if people can ever understand how you can be in a room full of people and be lonely sometimes.” —Trey Songz
99. “The road can become a very lonely place. It's not what it's cracked up to be. Of course, it's what you make it.” — Ted DiBiase Sr.
100. “I want to be together with everyone else but stay lonely.” — Jean-Luc Godard
101. “When you're growing up, it's very easy to feel lonely and insecure.” — John Tiffany
102. "It’s strange. I felt less lonely when I didn’t know you." —Jean-Paul Sartre
103. “I am around people I love to be with all day; I'm not lonely. The simplest, happiest pleasure is being on my couch with my dog, Neville. Nothing is more comforting or soothing.” — Marc Jacobs
104. “Sometimes I get lonely, but it's nice to be alone.” — Tatjana Patitz
105. “I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else.” —Gus Kahn
106. “I do not often get lonely, and I never get bored.” — Laura Dekker
107. “We're all outsiders in a way. We're all alone and can become very lonely.” —Hugo Weaving
108. "What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?" —George Eliot
109. “Animals keep you company when you're really lonely. It helps because when you have a friend around who always likes you no matter what — it's harder to feel bad or down.” — Aaron Carter
110. “I think I was a pretty anxious dreamer, maybe a fundamentally lonely kid.” — Karyn Kusama
111. “When people are lonely they stoop to any companionship.“ — Lew Wallace
112. "The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared." ―Lois Lowry
113. “Even if you're independent, I think you get lonely.” — Mia Wasikowska
114. “Music is supposed to make you less lonely - that's the whole idea.” — Kristian Bush
115. “You can be lonely when you have a guy living with you.” — Yoko Ono
116. “When you feel that the way you interpret the world is fairly idiosyncratic, you can feel somewhat ostracized and lonely.” — Jonathan Ive
117. "I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable." —Henry Miller
118. “Lonely people, in talking to each other, can make each other lonelier.” —Lillian Hellman
119. “People are lonely. They want company and your book can provide them company and a little bit of hope. And there's nothing wrong with that.” — Donald Miller
120. “At times in my life, I have been utterly lonely. At other times, I've had disgusting infectious diseases. Try admitting these things in our culture.” — Martha Beck
121. “I've gone through long periods without being with someone and got a bit lonely, but not for a while.” — Rufus Sewell
122. "I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others — young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life." ―F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Helen Luc is a frequent contributor to YourTango. Her writing focuses on love, relationships, and pop-culture topics.