Andrei Platonov Quotes

The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart.

It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love. It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that had flickered out.

I wish I could explain it so someone could understand it. I'm afraid it's something I can't put into words. There's just this heavy, overwhelming despair - dreading everything. Dreading life. Empty inside, to the point of numbness. It's like there's something already dead inside. My whole being has been pulling back into that void for months. (81)

I was dead inside.

Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.

Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us!

I have never felt bereft of anything.

Oh, what a void there is in things.

Maybe I should quit the business. There's no one left for me to love. Mama's dead. Mr. Burns couldn't care less about me. What's left?

I sat there with everything - and I had nothing.

The whole world appears to me like a huge vacuum, a vast empty space, whence nothing desirable, or at least satisfactory, can possibly be derived; and I long daily to die more and more to it; even though I obtain not that comfort from spiritual things which I earnestly desire.

Everything was coming my way, but I was going down. I was painfully empty.

It looked like everything worth living for was gone. The entire country was depressed -- there was no hope.

Emptiness will always cripple me.

I remember thinking I couldn't be bothered to feel any emotions any more.

My soul is dead.

I thought I was dead inside.

Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb/I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from/Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer/It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Emptiness has its solace in that there's nothing left to take.

I just looked at her, feeling utterly empty. I didn't know what I was supposed to say to her. My life is in that bed. Please let me stay.

I wonder if I shall ever see her again, and I realize that I scarcely care. I can feel the sheets beneath me, and the cold air on my chest. I feel fine. I feel absolutely fine. I feel nothing at all.

I want to be alone. Sympathies wasted on my hollow shell. I feel there's nothing left to fight for. No reason for a cause.

I felt as if I had attended the funeral of someone I didn't know.

Long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.