Date: 1997

"But her innocent attention has reach'd unto the dead Vacuum ever at the bottom of my soul,-- humiliation absolute."

— Pynchon, Thomas (b. 1937)

Date: 2006

"More and more in recent weeks, he had found himself approaching likewise the condition of an empty cylinder, ony intermittently occupied by intelligent thought."

— Pynchon, Thomas (b. 1937)

Date: 2009

"His brain gradually empties of work, of falafel wraps and oaty squares, and he starts to feel hopeful for the evening; perhaps he'll acquire that state of peaceful inactivity that is the nirvana of the exhausted parent."

— Nicholls, David (b. 1966)

Date: 2010

"His cell was a concrete box six feet by ten with one window and a steel door with a slot wide enough to slip his hands through but that was all, and most of the time he just lay there on his cot, his mind so blank it was like a pail with nothing in it."

— Cronin, Justin