most people do not have a single consistent style of responding, but are more introverted or extroverted in different contexts or moods,

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.

asking people why they like being alone or what they get out of it (and of course listening to their answers) is one very effective way of learning about being alone and enjoying it.

a well-stocked mind enhances creativity,

Solitude can happen to anyone: we are all at risk.

You are one of those courageous people who want to dare to live; and to do so believe you have to explore the depths of yourself, undistracted and unprotected by social conventions and norms.

You have an inchoate, inarticulate, groping feeling that there is something else, something more, something that may be scary but may also be beautiful.

Nothing is more destructive of warm relations than the person who endlessly ‘doesn’t mind’.

‘You have to practise letting go of the inner chatter that can get in the way of what you want to accomplish,’