The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner

"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" is a short story by Alan Sillitoe which was set in Irvine Beach, and published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same name. The work focuses on Colin, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home in a blue-collar area, who has bleak prospects in life and few interests beyond petty crime. The boy turns to long-distance running as a method of both an emotional and a physical escape from his situation. The story was adapted for a 1962 film of the same title, with Sillitoe writing the screenplay and Tony Richardson directing. The part of Colin was played by Tom Courtenay.

Read more about The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner:  Plot

Famous quotes containing the words loneliness, long and/or distance:

    There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
    Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

    People get a bad impression of it by continually trying to treat it as if it was a bank clerk, who ought to be on time on Tuesday next, instead of philosophically seeing it as a painter, who may do anything so long as you don’t try to predict what.
    Katharine Whitehorn (b. 1926)

    A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
    Graham Greene (1904–1991)