Daily Inspiration Quote by John Barrymore

Barrymore takes a line that’s been used for centuries to sanctify coupledom and flips it with a weary punchline. The first clause borrows Genesis as cultural authority: not just a moral claim, but the old social script that casts solitude as failure, danger, or incompleteness. Then he cuts it with “but sometimes,” a little hinge of lived experience that turns doctrine into comedy. The laugh isn’t at the Bible; it’s at the gap between what we’re told is good for us and what actually keeps us sane.

The subtext is adult and faintly bruised. “Not good” sounds tidy until you’ve been married, divorced, hounded, adored, or misunderstood - all of which Barrymore knew intimately as a celebrity in the early 20th-century spotlight. For an actor whose public persona was built on romantic charisma, “alone” isn’t just literal; it’s a rare room with the door shut. The relief he’s talking about is the relief from performance: the spouse’s expectations, the audience’s hunger, the social obligation to be “on.”

What makes the line work is its tight moral reversal. It acknowledges the truth in the ancient warning (humans do need each other) while insisting on a less respectable truth: togetherness can be its own kind of loneliness. It’s a secular confession dressed as a joke, and the joke lands because it grants permission to feel something culture usually scolds you for - gratitude for your own company.