Quotes About Emptiness

In the stinking dark forest of splintery posts under the pier lay pizza tins, beer cans, cigarette wrappers, condoms—the joyless detritus of American joy.

On Sundays the world is as bright and empty as a balloon.

insanlar ellerini pantolonundan güçlükle ç?kard?lar. Ceplerinin bo? oldu?unu ancak o zaman gördüler." Joseph Roth, Toplu Hikâyeler

Des Menschen Heimweh erwacht draußen, es wächst und wächst, wenn keine Mauern es beengen.

He had lost his meticulous sense of the passing of time ever since he had given up several old habits. For after all, the hours and the days were meant precisely to maintain those habits, and now the hours and the days resembled empty vessels that could no longer be filled and need not be bothered with anymore.

Allora, prima della grande guerra, all'epoca in cui ebbero luogo i fatti di cui si narra in queste pagine, non era ancora indifferente se un uomo viveva o moriva. Quando qualcuno spariva dalla schiera terrestre non veniva subito rimpiazzato da un altro affinché il morto venisse dimenticato: restava un vuoto, e i testimoni vicini e lontani del declino ammutolivano alla vista di quel vuoto.

I am alone. My heart beats only for myself. The strikers mean nothing to me. I have nothing in common with the mob, nor with individuals. I am a cold person. In the war I did not feel I was part of my company. We all lay in the same mud and waited for the same death. But I could think only about my own life and death. I would step over corpses and it oftened saddened me that I could feel no pain.

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.

His jaws parted as he fought for breath. "There's nothing left . . ." he choked out. "It's all dark—everything's gone. . .

I've lost my best friend," he murmured. "I never thought I would feel so empty.

Everything seemed meaningless to me. All of a sudden. My own life, the lives of others, of animals of plants, the whole world. It no longer fitted together.

Everything which is human is alien to me.

Guilt results from unused life, from the unlived in us.

I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame.

The sight suddenly drove home the fantastic isolation of the place.

Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars.

Though the bored person hungers for things to happen to him, the disheartening fact is that when they do he empties them of the very meaning he unconsciously yearns for by using them as distractions. In popular culture even the second com- ing would become just another 'barren' thrill to be watched on television till Milton Berle comes on.

Viniste a visitarme en sueños pero el vacío que dejaste cuando te fuiste fue realidad.

Lo más impresionante de aquellos días, y más todavía de aquellas noches, era la soledad, el profundo sentimiento de soledad, de aislamiento, de saberse sin ningún habitante a quién sabe cuántos kilómetros a la redonda;

Aspettava da se stessa il sovrumano e dalla vita l'infinito. Ciò dava uno splendore di conquista ai suoi occhi, la forza al suo corpo fragile e finemente modellato, la bellezza ai suoi lineamenti rigidi. Ma ciò la rendeva vuota e fredda fino alla durezza, suscettibile fino alla punta delle dita e, come tutti gli orgogliosi, indifesa come un bambino nel profondo del suo cuore

Un uomo è quello che ha commesso. Se dimentica è un bicchiere messo alla rovescia, un vuoto chiuso.

La ricchezza addobba spazi che poi lascia vuoti

Don Raimondo tells me what he can't tell them. "The emptiness on the surface of a wall left by a sold bookshelf is the deepest I know. I take away with me the banished books, I give them a second life. Like the second coat in painting, used for finishing, a book's second life is its best." He's rescued the library of a lover of American literature.

Vacare Deum. Be free for God.     I have a need of such a clearance as the Saviour effected in the temple of Jerusalem a riddance of the clutter of what is secondary that blocks the way to the all-important central emptiness which is filled with the presence of God alone.   Jean Danielou