Modern fiction keeps returning to lonely characters because isolation now hides inside relationships, workplaces and digital ...

“Loneliness has followed me my whole life,” says Robert De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle, in Taxi Driver. “Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s ...

“Loneliness is grief, distended,” writes The New Yorker, condensing timelessness, placelessness, circumstancelessness of feeling. In all the poetical gravity of these lines, to call loneliness an ...

Research suggests loneliness and depression can reinforce each other, while social isolation has a more limited effect.

Visit NAP.edu/10766 to get more information about this book, to buy it in print, or to download it as a free PDF. 4 The survey did not inquire about what kind of loneliness participants felt and ...