Party of One Quotes

“The loner who looks fabulous is one of the most vulnerable loners of all.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“We do not require company. In varying degrees, it bores us, drains us, makes our eyes glaze over. Overcomes us like a steamroller. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't understand.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“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, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“The whole world is a personality cult.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Writing is done alone. People do not talk about the things they do alone.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“After what others would call a fun day out together, we feel as if we have been at the Red Cross, donating blood.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Because loners are born everywhere, we end up living everywhere. We do not, have not, tended to single ourselves out as special, elite, requiring rarefied environments. Too often we have done the opposite; lived where we lived because our jobs were there, or families, or because we'd heard the schools were good there, or that we would love a place with changing seasons. Then, no matter what, we put our noses to the grindstone. We take living there as a fait accompli, a fact. Too often we are miserable somewhere without realizing why. We blame ourselves for not buckling down, settling in, fitting in. The problem is the place, but too often we do not see this, we will not allow ourselves to see this. It's the same old thing: This is a friendly town, so what's your problem?
...To the non-loner, or the self-reproaching loner, the fact of being a loner is not comparable to those other determinants. It is not a matter of life and death, we tell ourselves. It its not a matter of breathing or of execution by stoning. But home is the crucible of living...So how can living not be a matter of life and death?”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Not that I was incapable of friendship. 'Don't be shy', the teachers coaxed. I was not shy, only extremely choosy. And Denise shone like a diamond. If you had to ask me to define paradise, I would have said a desert island which Denise could visit, on a boat.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“written works do not produce fast reactions as pictures and sculptures and music do. it takes no effort to see or hear. but to read - to grasp what the writer has done - requires commitment. engagement. as is the case with most art, the relationship between the maker and the audience is remote in time and space. the writer is nowhere to be seen when the reader takes up the book, or even dead. but most often, books go unread...thus the writer, knowing this as writers do, is even more alone...yet writers write. and knowing what they know makes their isolation almost a sacrament.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“And as experienced as I am, it still summons an act of bravery from me, and I like that. I like the idea of setting an example - proving that it is acceptable to be alone in a public place where everyone else is in groups, and to just be sitting there eating, not having to be engrossed in anything else.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Loners live among the mob, so the mob mistakes us for its own, presuming and assuming. When the mob gets too close, the truth is revealed. Running or walking away, chased or free, any which way, we tell the mob in effect I don't need you.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“I don’t hate my relatives or those whose names fill my address book. But I do not want to have lunch with any of them. It is not personal. I am not angry. Nor is this about being afraid. I am not shy. I do not have terrible manners.

Do birds hate lips? Do Fijians detest snowplows? Being a loner is not about hate, but need: We need what others dread. We dread what others need.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Loners can play well with others-the right others,”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“People say the desert is desolate. Yet for me it's very much alive, full of surprises. As soon as I see those wide-open spaces, I can breathe,”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“They say isolation drives you crazy. Sure it does-when you can't get enough of it.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“America trembles in fear of loners, yet Charles Manson is a social butterfly.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Is socializing all that great? Riots are socializing. Arguably, more damage is done and time wasted in company with others than alone.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“The mob thinks we are maladjusted. Of course we are adjusted just fine, not to their frequency. They take it personally.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Writers' closest companions are inside their heads.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Alone, we are alive.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Loners live among the mob, so the mob mistakes us for its own, presuming and assuming.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Troubles always ensue when assumptions clash, when expectations do not match.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“The most horrifying thing about art is its honesty,”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Yet introverts and loners are not one and the same thing.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice keeps me from feeling isolated.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“Is that what they think, then? That loners have no friends?”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“APART.
Such a simple concept. So concrete. So easy to represent on charts or diagrams with dots and pushpins either in or out. Yet real life is not dots. Some of us appear to be in, but we are out. And that is where we want to be. Not just want but need, the way tuna need the sea.
Simple: an orientation, not just a choice. A fact. To paraphrase that Boston song, more than a feeling. We are loners. Which means we are at our best, as Orsino says in Twelfth Night, when least in company.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

“And what does work mean for loners? For some, the smart and lucky ones who work alone, it means accomplishing things without being made to suffer. Simple as it should be, no loner can take this point for granted. Along with whatever other hardships work brings-difficulty, danger, dullness, unfair pay-loners who labor any way besides alone endure one more. It is a hardship nonloners don't even know exists, cannot conceive of.
How much time spent with others is too much? Side by side, within their sight, in earshot-forty minutes? Two hours, tops. Yet today's standard work shift lasts eight. Putting loners in busy workplaces all day is like making albinos pick cotton without sunscreen.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Artistic temperament is not a choice. Jan suffered for his. And it means being aware, from the time one discovers that other people exist, that other people do not see things as one does. Sometimes it seems that other people all see things alike, and that however everyone else sees things it is not as one does. It startles the young artist at first-the first few times he is told walls are not for drawing on, that mashed potatoes are not clay, that horses are not blue. In time he realizes, Oh, I'm on my own with this. My visions can't be shared or discussed in mixed company. And if I try to talk about them, someone might laugh or shake her head uncomprehendingly or try to make me stop.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto

“Artists hear what no one else hears. They see what no one else sees. They say what no one else says. They must. And to do this, they traffic in the slippery yield of their own souls. They bring to earth the wrack and lode of depths that only they can reach and still come back alive.
Inspiration is a flash. A momentary flicker that-if the would-be recipient is mired in mindless chatter-might easily die unseen. It cannot be repeated, duplicated, slowed down, cached for viewing at some more convenient time. The mind awaiting inspiration must be primed, ever awake, aware. For this it is best off alone.”
― Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto