Maya

“Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

“Children lose interest in their parents when they are left. They are not sentimental. They are passionate and cold. [...] They learn to pretend. And pretense becomes the most active, the realest part, alluring as dreams. It takes place of what we think is real. - pg. 11-12”
― Fleur Jaeggy, S. S. Proleterka