“Ne, nė vienas žmogus ilgai negalėtų pakelti tokio liepsningo gyvenimo. <...> Niekas negalėtų taip ilgai dieną naktį deginti visus savo žiburius, eikvoti visus savo vulkanus, niekas neįstengtų taip ilgai dieną naktį stovėti liepsnose, kasdien daug valandų su įkaitusia galva mąstyti, nuolatos mėgaudamasis, nuolatos kurdamas, nuolatos šviesus, su budriais jausmais ir nervais nelyginant pilis, už kurios langų kasdien skamba muzika, o naktimis tviska tūkstančiai žvakių.”

“إن الناس إذا أعتقدوا أن تحتضر ، يعطونك كامل اهتمامهم .. إذا كانت هذه هي آخر مرة يرونك فيها يرونك حقًا .. وينسون كل شيء آخر عن دفاتر شيكاتهم وأغاني الراديو و العناية بشعرهم . إنك تظهر باهتمامهم الكامل ..”

“We are stripped of all that gave value and substance to our existence: power and love; in this naked final state, our last lover, our mate, death, comes. Bereft, without cover, we face the elements that will undo us. The winter breakers crash over and through us, flaunting their vigor and our nullity, as if the entire cosmos were now taking its ultimate revenge on the human creature who has lived too long: the dying sun mocks us from the west, for it will return tomorrow to die again, but we go down only once; the rising sun mocks us from the east, for we will not share in the rebirth of light and life; the noonday taunts us with its heat and vitality, for we are detritus; the north finally cloaks us in our last vestments: eternal night. That is how it ends.”

“Amongst democratic nations men easily attain a certain equality of conditions: they can never attain the equality they desire. It perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they think they are about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights they die.”

“In Collegium it had been the fashion, while he had been resident there, to paint death as a grey-skinned, balding Beetle man in plain robes, perhaps with a doctor’s bag but more often an artificer’s toolstrip and apron, like the man who came in, at the close of the day, to put out the lamps and still the workings of the machines.Among his own people, death was a swift insect, gleaming black, its wings a blur – too fast to be outrun and too agile to be avoided, the unplumbed void in which he swam was but the depth of a single facet of its darkly jewelled eyes.”

“So you’re here by yourself?”“Yes.”“Seems like an odd place to come by yourself.”“I needed to get away.”“Woman trouble? That’s another of my father’s expressions.”“No, actually. I poisoned my neighbor’s dogs.”After a moment she said, “How drunk are you?”“Quite.”“Is that true?”“What?”“That you poisoned your neighbor’s dogs.”“I’m afraid it is.”“I have dogs.”“Well, keep them away from me.”

“He thought about that visionary lady. To die, he thought, never knowing the fierce joy and attendant comfort of a loved one’s embrace. To sink into that hideous coma, to sink then into death and, perhaps, return to sterile, awful wanderings. All without knowing what it was to love and be loved.That was a tragedy more terrible than becoming a vampire.”

“Live now, die later!”

“A fool without fear is sometimes wiser than an angel with fear.”

“When I die, I plan to be laughing hysterically.”

“When I die I hope it may be said:’Her suffering was black, but her books were read’.”

“The ocean pulsed outside our window. The sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below usually calmed me down, but the fear and chaos that were tangled in my mind made that an impossibility.”

“I never saw Death before, and now I seeThat it is warring eyes in a woman’s form.”

“If it had been a heart attack, the newspapermight have used the word massive,as if a mountain range had openedinside her, but insteadit used the word suddenly, a light coming onin an empty room. The telephonefell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeatingsomething happened, something awfula sunday, dusky. If it had beenterminal, we could have cradled heras she grew smaller, wiped her mouth,said good-bye. But it was sudden,how overnight we could be orphaned& the world became a bell we’d crawl inside& the ringing all we’d eat.”

“She nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written.”