Void.

“I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can't help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year. I feel I know you so well that I couldn't have known you better if we'd been friends for twenty years. You won't fail me, will you? Only two minutes, and you've made me happy forever. Yes, happy. Who knows, perhaps you've reconciled me with myself, resolved all my doubts.

When I woke up it seemed to me that some snatch of a tune I had known for a long time, I had heard somewhere before but had forgotten, a melody of great sweetness, was coming back to me now. It seemed to me that it had been trying to emerge from my soul all my life, and only now-

If and when you fall in love, may you be happy with her. I don't need to wish her anything, for she'll be happy with you. May your sky always be clear, may your dear smile always be bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of one's life?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

“As for shame, that's my strength; I would even say it's my mother; I am born of her, I'm ashamed of her, I want her, I'm afraid of her; I could also say that she is my beloved; the way she is, the way I am with her, I can even say that we are as inseparable as the pupil from the eye and as the lovely Isolde from Tristan. She is my opening to the outside, she is my light and my death-bearer; I go through her to get to myself. I owe her even the discovery of my anatomy, an illumination in several chapters, and at the same time my discovery of social laws, of the Mosaic tables and of my sense of ownership. Shame upon shame, they put me together thus.”
― Hélène Cixous, Inside

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“When I think of my mother’s violent temper, outbursts of affection, and reproachful attitude, I try not to see them as facets of her personality but to relate them to her own story and social background. This way of writing, which seems to bring me closer to the truth, relieves me of the dark, heavy burden of personal remembrance by establishing a more objective approach. And yet something deep down inside refuses to yield and wants me to remember my mother purely in emotional terms—affection or tears—without searching for an explanation.”
― Annie Ernaux, A Woman's Story