There are hours when I look forward to a time when there will be nothing left to hang my heart on. I'm tired of everything being taken from me again. There is no way out, because as long as there is a creature in the forest that I could love, I will; and when there is really nothing left, I will stop living. If everyone had been my kind, there would never have been a wall, and the old man would not have to lie petrified in front of his well. But I understand why the others have always been superior. Loving and caring for another being is a very tedious business and much harder than killing and destroying. Raising a child takes twenty years, killing it takes ten seconds. - Marlen Haushofer, The Wall