There is a point -- and you may know it yourself--a point in fatigue or pain when logic slowly crumbles from the world, where reason's bricks sieve to crumb.Where content flits from language, goes its way and departs, its pack on its back; you take the high road and I'll take the low. Where meaning evaporates into the air like ether. The Giant has reach this point. When he seals his senses, he's sealing out the meaninglesss, because inside he's trying to preserve some sense of what meaning means.

— The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel (Page 190)