I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are.
I hate to sound esoteric, but there is something about a house that leads you to that one chair, that one corner, where you just sit and feel comfortable.
I've always had lots of friends and my house was the house they all hung out at.
I owe my solitude to other people.
We were lounging around in this beautiful house in LA, and I'm coming from NY, so sometimes when we weren't working I would just sit on those folding chairs.
In those early years in New York when I was a stranger in a big city, it was the companionship and later friendship which I was offered in the Linnean Society that was the most important thing in my life.
I grew up in a two-bedroom house with my grandfather, my mom and dad and four kids. I slept on the couch or on the floor, and I always wanted to have my own space.
I sort of came from a big family - eight kids - and I guess I always, more than most people, really revel in privacy and solitude sometimes.
My table seats eight, so that's my maximum. Having a small number of guests is the only way to generate good conversation. Besides, your whole house doesn't get wrecked that way.
I remember as a kid not ever wanting to have friends around to my house because it was, for want of a better description, disheveled.