“I can talk with everyone. I can spend time with them but then I want to be by myself…When someone can’t live in the desert he should try to create the conditions for the stillness wherever it is that he is living. If we’re careful to cut off our passions then will be in the desert wherever we are. And now in my final years I’d like to live on Athos with the naked ascetics but can I? The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. At night and for three hours during the day I want to be by myself – I feel I have to be totally isolated.”
Elder Paisios
~Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos