I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other

But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.

And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it.

It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it

there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along....

[A]t bottom, and just in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone, and for one person to be able to advise or even help another, a lot must happen, a lot must go well, a whole constellation of things must come right in order once to succeed.