" You are well off, you are alone, Hasse had said. All very well—the man who is alone cannot be forsaken. But sometimes, at night, the whole artificial structure collapses, life turns into a sobbing insistent melody; out of the senseless grinding of the everlasting barrel organ, rises up a whirlwind of wild desires, cravings, melancholy, hope, without direction seeking an object. Ach, this pitiful need for a little bit of warmth—couldn’t it be two hands then and a face bowed near? Or was that too only deception, surrender, and flight? Was there nothing then, but to be alone? "

― Erich Maria Remarque , Three Comrades