"How can solitude help our world? How can we, by practicing solitude, bring love into the world? In our emergency-oriented society, fear and anger have become powerful forces. Not only do we see in the daily newspapers people driven together by fear or bound together by anger, but we also start to realize that many of us in our families and communities are plagued by a restlessness tainted by fear and anger. We search to satisfy a growing need for community that offers a sense of belonging, a place where frustrations can be expressed, disappointments shared, and pains healed."
"These painful yearnings push us to desire a total break with teh past and to seek new forms of intimacy that can be more directly experienced."
"In solitude we come to the realization that we are not driven together but brought together. In solitude we come to know our fellow human beings not as partners who satisfy our deepest needs, but as brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God's all-embracing love. In solitude we discover that family or community is not some common ideology but a response to a common call. In solitude we indeed experience that community is not made but given."
"Solitude, then, is not private time in contrast to time together, nor is it a time to restor our tired minds. Solitude is very different from a "time-out" from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other driectly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other. "
"In solitude we know a bond with each other that does not depend on words, gestures, or actions but is rather a bond much deeper than our own efforts could ever create." | 
