“But do you know what struck me, apart from Nancy’s vibrant self-pity, which she had the nerve to pretend was grief?”

Letter to Oskar Pollak (8 November 1903); cited from Briefe, 1902-1924 (1958) edited by [Max Brod]], p. 27<!-- New York: Schocken --> ; translation from Franz Kafka, Representative Man (1991) by Frederick R. Karl, p. 98 <!-- New York: Ticknor & Fields -->
Context: We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours? And if I were to cast myself down before you and weep and tell you, what more would you know about me than you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell.

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: The Waste Land

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Prologue (p. 3)
Culture series, Inversions (1998)

Stanley Cohen, quoted in New York Times obituary http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/science/dr-rita-levi-montalcini-a-revolutionary-in-the-study-of-the-brain-dies-at-103.html?_r=0
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Source: One Day

Source: Dreamfever