Recluse Quotes

• Normally seven minutes of another person's company was enough to give her a headache so she set things up to live as a recluse. She was perfectly content as long as people left her in peace. Unfortunately society was not very smart or understanding.

  Steig Larsson

  Smart, Long, People

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• "Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located".

  James Nicoll

  Gun, Two, Police

  Usenet article, 2005.

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• I really am a recluse. I just enjoy watching the wind blow through the trees. In America someone who sits around and does that is at the bottom of the ladder, but in Japan, say, someone who goes up into the mountains is accorded great respect. I guess I am somewhere in between. I enjoy reclusion: it clears my mind.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Blow, Wind, America

  "Zen and the art of Robert Pirsig". Interview with Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. November 18, 2006.

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• In the life of each of us there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness.

  Sarah Orne Jewett

  Regret, Secret, Given

  Sarah Orne Jewett (2016). “The Country of the Pointed Firs”, p.72, Sarah Orne Jewett

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• They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

  Emily Dickinson

  God, Spiritual, Memorable

  Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1971). “The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.317, Biblo & Tannen Publishers

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• I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime.

  Donald Miller

  Twenties, Needs, Use

  Donald Miller (2012). “Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality”, p.152, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Luxury, Political, Politics

  Woodrow Wilson, Ronald J. Pestritto (2005). “Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings”, p.224, Lexington Books

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• A fine line separates the weary recluse from the fearful hermit. Finer still is the line between hermit and bitter misanthrope.

  Dean Koontz

  Lines, Bitter, Misanthrope

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Velocity: A Novel”, p.50, Bantam

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• The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both.

  Susan Sontag

  Inspiration, Writing, Guilt

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• A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.

  Alfred Nobel

  Book, Men, Ink

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• I'm kind of a recluse when it comes to going outside.

  Erykah Badu

  Kind

  "The Survivors: Erykah Badu". Interview with Sean Fennessey, www.gq.com. November 3, 2011.

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• When I think of mystery, I don't think about myself. I think of the universe, like why does the moon rise when the sun falls? Caterpillars turn into butterflies? I really haven't remained a recluse.

  Bob Dylan

  Fall, Butterfly, Thinking

  "Bob Dylan Not Like a Rolling Stone Interview". "Spin" Magazine Interview with Scott Cohen, www.interferenza.com. December 1985.

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• Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse. Untrammeled reasoning is the indulgence of the philosopher, of the dreamer of sweet dreams.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Dream, Sweet, Luxury

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link (1990). “The Papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• I'm far from being reclusive. I have thirty or forty year friendships that I prefer to meeting new people. I go to an occasional party, but just because I don't go to a lot of events, and I'm not out in public all the time doesn't mean I'm anti-social or a recluse.

  Kirk Kerkorian

  Friendship, Party, Mean

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• The Lord chose the apostles, that they should be with Him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils.

  Theophan the Recluse

  Humility, Devil, Might

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• Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people.

  Theophan the Recluse

  Love, Life, God

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• No matter how different our First Ladies have been - and as individual women they have ranged from recluses to vibrant hostesses to political manipulators on a par with Machiavelli - they have all shared the unnerving experience of facing a job they did not choose.

  Margaret Truman Daniel

  Jobs, Political, Different

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• I'm still a recluse. I still hate everyone. I'm still a misanthrope.

  Al Jourgensen

  Hate, Misanthrope, Stills

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• I'm not really comfortable with who I am to be honest. I feel more free to step into the shoes of somebody else. There's always an element of me in there but, you know, if you give me a script and some clothes I can do anything. But, as Ryan, I'm a bit of a recluse.

  Ryan Kwanten

  Shoes, Clothes, Who I Am

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• We care. We feel. We think. We do not always miss the absent one. We cannot always come when called. Being friends with a loner requires patience and the wisdom that distance does not mean dislike.

  Anneli Rufus

  Missing Someone, Distance, Mean

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• I'm kind of a recluse.

  Faye Dunaway

  Kind

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• My belief is that "recluse" is a code word generated by journalists... meaning, "doesn't like to talk to reporters."

  Thomas Pynchon

  Belief, Journalist, Code

  Phone call to CNN, June 5, 1997.

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• They called me a 'rapist' and a 'recluse.' I'm not a recluse.

  Mike Tyson

  Crazy, Boxing, Boxers

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• How can you be a recluse in a house full of children, even if you had the inclination to be, which I don't?

  Daniel Day-Lewis

  Children, House, Inclination

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• Me, I walk along and feel quietly defensive, a recluse in the Land of We. That's quite the loaded word, 'we.

  Caroline Knapp

  Land, Walks, Feels

  8 Copy quote