I do not exist. Only you exist.

Favorite quotes from “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Who knows who you really are? A person is like a novel; Up to the very last page you don’t know how it’s going to end.

Everyone’s sitting all closed up in his own glass cage waiting for something.

She’ll be there, too, of course, and I’ll see her, only from far away. Far away: That’s going to be painful, because I need her, I’m drawn irresistibly to be…next to her, to have her hands, her shoulder, her hair…But I want even that pain…let it happen.

Do you believe that you will die? Yes, man is mortal, I am a man, ergo…No, that isn’t what I mean. I know that you know that. What I’m asking is: Have you ever actually believed it, believed it completely, believed not with your mind but with your body, actually felt that one day the fingers now holding this very piece of paper will be yellow and icy…?No, of course you don’t believe it—which is the reason why, up to now, you haven’t jumped from the tenth floor to the pavement, why you’ve gone on eating, turning pages, shaving, smiling, writing...

My heart swallowed hard and stopped, and, never stopping to think whether one could or not, whether it was stupid or not…

Lifting her head out of the pillow, O said, her eyes still shut, “Go away.” But as she was crying this came out: “O-way.” And this stupid detail also etched itself into me.

You’re afraid of it because it’s stronger than you, you hate it because you’re afraid of it, you love it because you can’t master it. You can only love something that refuses to be mastered.