In the desert, the only god is a well.

— Vera Nazarian

Religion starts with desolation and ends with misery.

— M.F. Moonzajer

Standing at the edge of timeAlmost falling down to the dark abyssAs I near the end of mineI reminisce the things I will missThe smiles and laughterRunning around without a careThe time when my grin will never falterBeing so free, willing my soul to bareHeartaches, heartbreaks and tearsNow I know better and to myself I will never lieBecause in woe, I learned to love and never fearThose were the best and worst moments of my lifeAs the memories rush back to meI look down and now I feel relievedBecause when it is timeEverything will be fine when I leave.

— Isabelle Guzman

The orange turns to dull bronze light and continues to show what it has shown all day long, but now it seems to show it without enthusiasm. Across those dry hills, within those little houses in the distance are people who've been there all day long, going about the business of the day, who now find nothing unusual or different in this strange darkening landscape, as we do. If we were to come upon them early in the day they might be curious about us and what we're here for. But now in the evening they'd just resent our presence. The workday is over. It's time for supper and family and relaxation and turning inward at home. We ride unnoticed down this empty highway through this strange country I've never seen before, and now a heavy feeling of isolation and loneliness becomes dominant and my spirits wane with the sun.

— Robert M. Pirsig

...What is the meaning of La Belle Dame Sans Merci? - have you never been enthralled? Enchantment that is unrequited desolates the soul...

— John Geddes

It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Because, George thought as she sat there with her eyes closed back before Christmas in Mrs Rock's self-consciously comfortable chair in the counselling office, how can it be that there's an advert on TV with dancing bananas unpeeling themselves in it and teabags doing a dance, and her mother will never see that advert? How can that advert exist and her mother not exist in the world?She didn't say it out loud, though, because there wasn't a point.It isn't about saying.It is about the hole which will form in the roof through which the cold will intensify and after which the structure of the house will begin to shift, like it ought, and through which George will be able to lie every night in bed watching the black sky.

— Ali Smith

On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world.

— Cormac McCarthy

Indelible waitingl'art poetique'..I will wait for the night to chase me...'I sit on a rock and watch children playingin the park belowThey don't see meOr know my thoughtsOr that you haven't calledBut I forgive them their indifference todayAbove me a crow cawsPerhaps he smells the crumbs on my dressOr my angerBut he flits away over the treesProbably has a homeProbably has a wifeProbably knew to callThe children leaveThe coffee in my can turns coldThe wind nips at meSome street lights flicker onBut I won't moveNot yetI will wait for the night to chase meBack where I came fromUp the empty streetTo a quiet house.

— Adelheid Manefeldt

Squiffy, have you ever felt a sort of strange emptiness in the heart? A sort of aching void of the soul?''Oh, rather!''What do you do about it?''I generally take a couple of cocktails.

— P.G. Wodehouse