Socialising Quotes

“Seriously, I think it is a grave fault in life that so much time is wasted in social matters, because it not only takes up time when you might be doing individual private things, but it prevents you storing up the psychic energy that can then be released to create art or whatever it is. It's terrible the way we scotch silence & solitude at every turn, quite suicidal. I can't see how to avoid it, without being very rich or very unpopular, & it does worry me, for time is slipping by , and nothing is done. It isn't as if anything was gained by this social frivolity, It isn't: it's just a waste.”
― Philip Larkin, Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica

“Preserve me from such cordiality! It is like handling briar-roses and may-blossoms - bright enough to the eye, and outwardly soft to the touch, but you know there are thorns beneath, and every now and then you feel them too; and perhaps resent the injury by crushing them in till you have destroyed their power, though somewhat to the detriment of your own fingers.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“Funny how ye tell people a story to make a point and ye fail, ye fail, a total disaster. Not only do ye no make yer point it winds up the exact fucking opposite man, the exact fucking opposite. That isnay a misunderstanding it's a total
whatever.”
― James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late

“For me, reading was never an antisocial activity. It was deeply social. It was the most profound kind of socialising there was. A deep connection to the imagination of another human being. A way to connect without the many filters society normally demands.”
― Mark Haig

“As soon as [Patricia Highsmith] had stopped work, she felt purposeless and quite at a loss about what to do with herself. 'There is no real life except in working,' she wrote in her notebook, 'that is to say in the imagination.' It was in this state that she observed that only one situation would drive her to commit murder - being part of a family unit. Most likely, she thought, she would strike out in anger at a small child, felling them in one blow. But children over the age of eight, she surmised, would probably take two blows to kill. The reality of socialising with anyone, no matter how close, she said, left her feeling fatigued.”
― Andrew Wilson, Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι

“Alone, seated in a strange house filled with strangers, I felt as if I were in dangerous waters, swimming badly and out of my depth. I was plankton in an ocean of whales.”
― Maya Angelou, Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas

“I would rather be bored alone than with someone else. I'm drawn to strange people. At a museum I look at people with the eyes of an artist, in the streets with my own. I can't remember the name of a person I have just met. In India, I travelled in a train compartment with a Swiss man I didn't know, we were crossing the plains of Kerala, I told him more about myself in several hours than I had told my best friends in several years, I knew I would never see him again, he was an ear without repercussions. Maybe I'm writing this book so I won't have to talk to anymore.”
― Édouard Levé, Autoportrait

“It’s easier to focus on being creative if you are not preoccupied with socialising with popular people. Sitting on the edge is a far better spot from which to observe than being hugged in the middle.”
― Robin Ince, I'm a Joke and So Are You: Reflections on Humour and Humanity

“Huy smiled every time he remembered to smile, to send a message that he wasn't unhappy. He had learned how to stop people from asking him what was wrong. He wasn't unhappy, he was happy to come and he was happy to watch and he was happy to listen and laugh. He figured his friends must have thought he did not have any opinions on the things they were discussing, but he did, and he wrote them down when he got home.
Just because you're not good at speaking, doesn't mean you're not good at listening and thinking, he wrote on the inside front cover of his black and white speckled composition notebook.”
― Ani Baker, Handsome Vanilla

“In an instant, she was free from this small commitment and any kind of freedom feels good. She much preferred that invites came faceless this way, so she could say No without saying anything at all. A voice without a voice; what a rare, modern treat. The world made it easier all the time for her to feel connected, but alone, and therefore free.”
― Ani Baker, Handsome Vanilla