“To define a solitary as someone who is not married – to define solitude as the absence of coupling – is like defining silence as the absence of noise. Solitude and silence are positive gestures. This is why Buddhists say that we can learn what we need to know by sitting on a cushion. This is why I say that you can learn what you need to know from the silent, solitary discipline of writing, the discipline of art. This is why I say that solitaries possess the key to saving us from ourselves.”

– from “Going It Alone: The dignity and challenge of solitude” by Fenton Johnson, published in the April 2015 issue of Harper’s