From In the Jungle of Cities:
Love, the warmth of bodies in contact, is the only mercy shown to us in the darkness. But the only union is that of the organs, and it can’t bridge over the cleavage made by speech. Yet they unite in order to produce beings to stand by them in their hopeless isolation. And the generations look coldly into each other’s eyes. If you cram a ship full to bursting with human bodies, they all freeze with loneliness.
From Baal:
EKART: There’s a kind of sky in my head, very green and vast, where my thoughts drift like featherweight clouds in the wind. They’re completely undecided in their course. All that’s inside me.
BAAL: It’s delirium. You’re an alcoholic. You see, it gets you in the end.
EKART: When I’m delirious I can feel it by my face.
BAAL: Your face has room for the four winds. Concave! [He looks at him.] You haven’t a face. You’re nothing. You’re transparent.
EKART: I’m growing more and more mathematical.
BAAL: Nobody knows your history. Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?
EKART: I shan’t ever have one. Who’s that outside?
BAAL: You’ve got a good ear! There’s something in you that you hide. You’re a bad man, like me, a devil. But one day you’ll see rats. Then you’ll be a good man again.