Estrangement Quotes

“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”
― John Joseph Powell, The Secret of Staying in Love

“exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.”
― Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

“A spiritual organization with a hierarchical structure can convey only the consciousness of estrangement, regardless of what teachings or deep inspirations are at its root.The structure itself reinforces the idea that some people are inherently more worthy than others.”
― Starhawk

“She was a stranger because something essential was shielded, released in tiny bursts until it became a flood---a flood of what I realized I did not know. Afterward, I would mourn her as if she'd died, because something had: someone we had created together.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“The question of the stranger in a society which estranges everybody from it--while forcing everybody to assimilate their own alienation--takes cover under dubious and sinister masks.”
― Norman Manea

“I understood the life around me better, not from love, which everybody acknowledges to be a great teacher, but from estrangement, to which nobody has attributed the power of reinforcing insight”
― Nirad C. Chaudhuri

“গভীর রাতে ঘুম ভেঙ্গে যায় প্রায়ই। ছাড়া ছাড়া অর্থহীন স্বপ্ন দেখতে দেখতে হঠাৎ জেগে উঠি। পরিচিত বিছানায় শুয়ে আছি, এই ধারণা মনে আসতেও সময় লাগে। মাথার কাছের জানালা মনে হয় সরে গেছে পায়ের কাছে। তৃষ্ণা বোধ হয়। বিছানার পাশে পানির বোতল। হাত বাড়িয়ে ��েনে নিলেই হয়, অথচ ইচ্ছে হয় না ।

কোনো কোনো রাতে অপূর্ব জোছনা হয়। সারা ঘর নরম আলোয় ভাসতে থাকে। ভাবি, একা একা বেড়ালে বেশ হতো। আবার চাদর মুড়ি দিয়ে নিজেকে গুটিয়ে ফেলি। যেন বাইরের উথাল পাথাল চাঁদের আলোর সঙ্গে আমার কোনো যোগ নেই ।”
― Humayun Ahmed, শঙ্খনীল কারাগার

“I am a stranger in this world, and there is a severe solitude and painful lonesomeness in my exile.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran

“Our incredible bewilderment (wilderness separation) blinds us from seeing that our many personal and global problems primarily result from our assault of and separation from the natural creation process within and around us. Our estrangement from nature leaves us wanting,and when we want there is never enough. Our insatiable wanting is called greed. It is a major source of our destructive dependencies and violence.”
― Michael J. Cohen, Reconnecting With Nature: Finding Wellness Through Restoring Your Bond With the Earth

“He lives all alone now, in the home they bought,
and finally seems to be managing, more or less.
Not the way he was, of course, with her,
who lives alone now, too, at the same address.

- Separatio in Loco”
― Miller Williams, Time and the Tilting Earth: Poems

“My voice thou oft hast heard and hast not feared, But oft rejoiced”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“To be soulbroken is to be filled with anguish that is brought on by the loss of our love, our relationship, and ourselves, and, often it is void of validation. If you know this pain, my deepest sympathies to you, not only for your loss but for how you've been hurting.”
― Stephanie Sarazin, Soulbroken: A Guidebook for Your Journey Through Ambiguous Grief

“Nobody goes no contact with a loving, caring, gentle, safe family. They end toxic relationships because all the other alternatives were exhausted and unsuccessful. They broke connections to abusive people because it was their last resort.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“The link of Nature draw me, flesh of flesh, Bone of my bone, thou art, and from thy state Mine never shall be parted”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“THE NO CONTACT RULE:

1. Zero contact; face to face & online.
2. No phone calls.
3. No text messaging.
4. No attending events where they're present.
5. No emails.
6. No letters, cards, or gifts.
7. No checking their social media profile.
8. No contacting their family and friends.
9. No combing through old photographs.
10. No going down memory lane.
11. Zero communication.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma

“One night, we workers formed a circle around the tallow candle as it burned, allowing each
other to bond by holding hands. It felt strange to connect with fellow people from Mira again. We have all become estranged from each other as we slave away for the woman leader.

In our circle, we closed our eyes and prayed. I pictured the streets of Mira, adorned with the rugged rawness of our original footprints. We once stepped together or
passed each other by, busy but comfortable with our work in various trades. Now we are anonymous, our identities stripped away from us.”
― Susan L. Marshall, Adira and the Dark Horse

“Even if exile is spent in the most beautiful city in the world, Brunetti realized, it is still exile.”
― Donna Leon, Death at La Fenice

“The mother who abandons her daughter leaves a pile of questions behind: Who was she? Where is she? Why did she leave? Like the child whose mother dies, the abandoned daughter lives with a loss, but she also struggles with the knowledge that her mother is alive yet inaccessible and out of touch. Death has a finality that abandonment simply does not.”
― Hope Edelman, Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss

“A daughter whose mother chose to leave her or was incapable of mothering may feel like a member of the emotional underclass, like a dispensable part of society whose needs the government has ignored. As a result, she often develops a sense of devaluation and unworthiness even more profound than that of the daughter whose mother has died.”
― Hope Edelman, Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss

“Feeling and talking through the pain--the humiliation of being an unloved child, the anger toward the cold mother, the anxiety of turning into her, the fear of maternal retribution for hating her--became the healing salve. Where therapy was successful, these women came to understand that their mothers, who were unfortunate, inadequate, insecure people, did not have the power to hurt them anymore. If their mothers continued to act destructively, they could walk away from them.”
― Evelyn S. Bassoff, Mothers and Daughters: Loving and Letting Go

“There have been plenty of people in my life - family, friends, colleagues, lovers, a forecast of the usual suspects that make a person's social circle - but mine has always felt a little bent out of shape. None of the relationships I've ever formed with another human being feel real to me, more like a series of missed connections. People might recognize my face, they may even know my name, but they'll never know the real me. Nobody does. I've always been selfish with the true thoughts and feelings inside my head. I don't share them with anyone because I can't. There is a version of me I can only ever be with myself.”
― Alice Feeney, His & Hers

“I know how it feels to be someplace you no longer belong, or to no longer be in the place you do belong, because that place has ceased to exist. I know what it’s like to be robbed of your foundation walls, how difficult it becomes to stand firm or stand at all, to provide others with protection. It’s impossible to imagine; it must be experienced, although best avoided. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.”
― Hans von Trotha, Pollaks Arm

“Strained Relations by Stewart Stafford

Brother, you have flown from me,
Too often and to that blinding maze,
As capricious as the wind that blows,
No visible shared blood between us.

Are you not my mother's and father's son?
If the fault lies with me, then tell me so,
Or let the bloodied bandage fall from you,
So the wound heals without reinfection.

You picked prized strangers over family,
More damaging self-flagellation as hubris,
They let you down as parents an infant,
Still, you chose a messy path of pain.

The only glimmer of light in the next life,
Is we two reuniting together again, brother,
Or shall you flee to fellow astral travellers?
A last dagger thrust in the permafrost cold?

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“We end up being strangers to those who have known us for too long.”
― Luigina Sgarro

“Thoughts of estrangement and unforgiveness take no prisoners. They may come like thieves in the night, or devious daylight muggers, to waylay your thoughts, rob you of peace and hijack your joy in the simple pleasures of everyday life. Their presence is constant,
unremitting … forever peering over your shoulder, or creeping just around the corner to trip up your thoughts or hamper your happiness.”
― Roger Macdonald Andrew, Forgive: Finding Inner Peace Through Words of Wisdom

“The shadows of estrangement, anger and unforgiveness wear black hoodies for disguise and inhabit the darkest corners of your life, and the furthermost caverns of your mind. They are the unwelcome stalkers that
never really leave you alone. They’re the ugly presence of despair, grief, regret and sorrow. They are forever rising up to blame you and point accusing, angry fingers.”
― Roger Macdonald Andrew, Forgive: Finding Inner Peace Through Words of Wisdom

“A major issue with estrangement is that it really is a two-fold forgiveness journey. It’s never just one side’s fault … so there’s an absolute necessity to forgive oneself for all and any parental failures, and it’s also necessary
to totally forgive the offspring for all and any nasty experiences of being cancelled, ghosted, e-blanked, ignored, rejected, avoided at Christmas and Father’s Day, the toxicity, angst, and all the other painful words that come to mind.”
― Roger Macdonald Andrew

“The remarkable idea of a highly valued 'someone’ who has left still being a member of our personal ‘community’ in some sense is useful in the case of loss or estrangement as it does not seem to sound so dreadfully bleak
and final.”
― Roger Macdonald Andrew, Forgive: Finding Inner Peace Through Words of Wisdom

“Don't become a stranger for me, for in doing so, you'll make me a stranger to my own self.”
― Shahid Hussain Raja

“The dysfunctional family relationships are disastrous. Poisonous. There can't be reconciliation. We cannot restore a destructive relationship with abusive siblings when they won't repent. Repentance requires them to turn away from their transgressions and evil schemes. In most cases, toxic siblings won't repent.”
― Dana Arcuri CTRC, Toxic Siblings: A Survival Guide to Rise Above Sibling Abuse & Heal Trauma