‘He will laugh at the trials of the innocent.’ Silence of God. The noises here below imitate this silence. They mean nothing.
It is when from the innermost depths of our being we need a sound which does mean something — when we cry out for an answer and it is not given us — it is then that we touch the silence of God.
As a rule our imagination puts words into the sounds in the same way as we idly play at making out shapes in wreaths of smoke; but when we are too exhausted, when we no longer have the courage to play, then we must have real words. We cry out for them. The cry tears our very entrails. All we get is silence.
After having gone through that, some begin to talk to themselves like madmen. Whatever they may do afterwards, we must have nothing but pity for them. The others, and they are not numerous, give their whole heart to silence.
— Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (trans. E. Craufurd)
Notes for Nothing 