Daily Inspiration Quote by Germaine Greer

Loneliness usually conjures the image of isolation, but Greer aims her cruelty at a more intimate scene: the shared room, the shared life, the shared routines where one person has effectively vanished without leaving. The phrase "close propinquity" is deliberately clinical, almost legalistic, as if she’s documenting a crime scene of domestic life. It’s a reminder that abandonment doesn’t require distance; it can happen at conversational range.

Her intent is less to romanticize loneliness than to indict a particular kind of relational power. "Ceased to communicate" reads like a decision, not a failure. In that small grammatical move, Greer flags silence as an action with consequences. The subtext: withholding speech can be a form of control, punishment, or erasure, especially in relationships structured by unequal expectations about emotional labor. You can be physically present and still weaponize absence.

As an activist and second-wave feminist lightning rod, Greer writes from a context where private life is political terrain. The home isn’t a sanctuary in her worldview; it’s a place where domination can be quiet, procedural, and socially excused. Cruelty here isn’t screaming or violence but the slow, sanctioned withdrawal that leaves the other person questioning their reality: Am I overreacting? Did I deserve this? The line works because it names a common but hard-to-prosecute experience, giving language to the particular misery of being ignored by someone close enough to touch.