It was as if the main screw in his head, which held his whole life together, had become stripped. The screw would not go in, would not come out, but … - Leo Tolstoy

Quite often a man goes on for years imagining that the religious teaching that had been imparted to him since childhood is still intact, while all the time there is not a trace of it left in him.

When a man sees a dying animal, horror comes over him: that which he himself is, his essence, is obviously being annihilated before his eyes — is ceasing to be. But when the dying one is a person, and a beloved person, then, besides a sense of horror at the annihilation of life, there is a feeling of severance and a spiritual wound which, like a physical wound, sometimes kills and sometimes heals, but always hurts and fears any external, irritating touch.

Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.