Children wrote to Moominvalley, and Tove Jansson replied

"It took me 30 years before I began to enjoy it [loneliness], and many more before it became a necessity, and many more still before I realised that my solitude is a rare luxury — so long as it is voluntary, and I can interrupt it at any time. Of true loneliness I know nothing, not yet. In fact, almost nothing at all."