How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)
Quote #19
"But all the same," insisted the Savage, "it is natural to believe in God when you're alone—quite alone, in the night, thinking about death…"
"But people never are alone now," said Mustapha Mond. "We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it."
The Savage nodded gloomily. At Malpais he had suffered because they had shut him out from the communal activities of the pueblo, in civilized London he was suffering because he could never escape from those communal activities, never be quietly alone. (17.31-3)
Which does John find worse—the state of constant isolation, or that of forced social interaction?
Quote #20
But it was not alone the distance that had attracted the Savage to his lighthouse; the near was as seductive as the far. The woods, the open stretches of heather and yellow gorse, the clumps of Scotch firs, the shining ponds with their overhanging birch trees, their water lilies, their beds of rushes—these were beautiful and, to an eye accustomed to the aridities of the American desert, astonishing. And then the solitude! Whole days passed during which he never saw a human being. […] Flowers and a landscape were the only attractions here. And so, as there was no good reason for coming, nobody came. During the first days the Savage lived alone and undisturbed. (18.34)
The text makes a big deal out of establishing that John's self-imposed suffering must take place in solitude. This is because his suffering has to do with his spirituality, a desire to be closer to God, to cleanse himself of his human sins. And as we've seen many times earlier in the novel, spirituality can only be nurtured in solitude.