Astragal

The road is as bare and harsh as a desert: later, perhaps, calmly, we'll start down magic pathways...From now until then there is still a great deal of pain, a great many people and things to annihilate: thread by thread I unravel, I destroy; I hate myself for making a "project" out of Julien, but I sense too many false and sticky attachments around him, these at least I would like to break off.

I used to be pampered, petted, fussed over, too, in the old days: I was intact and able to bite, my cupboard was full and my claws were ingenious.

My equipment was destroyed, I am wounded and begging, and it's I now who offers herself and clings; people don't hold onto me at all, for I have nothing to give them but myself, myself naked, and it will take a lot of time and tenderness before some resource, some source springs up in me.

Chapter 133: The Chase - First Day

Ye two are the opposite poles of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold- I shiver!

Ruth 1:19-21

19 So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?

20 And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

21 I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?

The secret of good old-age is none other than an honest pact with solitude.

Tarkovsky

Learn to love solitude – to be more alone with yourselves. The problem with young people is their carrying out noisy and aggressive actions not to feel lonely – and this is a sad thing – the individual must learn to be on his own as a child – for this doesn’t mean to be alone: it means not get bored with oneself which is a very dangerous symptom, almost a disease.