Around Quotes (page 121)
He lay in darkness, like a sacrifice; he could hear the teeth of his leprosy devouring his flesh. There was a smell of contempt around him, insisting on his impotence. But his lips were bowed in a placid smile, a look of fondness, as if he had come at last to approve his disintegration.
Stephen R. Donaldson
I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics. Maybe he did. I told that to somebody at breakfast the other mornin and they asked me if I believed in Satan...I had to think about that. I guess as a boy I did. Come the middle years my belief had waned somewhat. Now I'm startin to lean back the other way. He explains a lot of things that otherwise dont have no...
Cormac McCarthy
Pale, nervous girls with black-rimmed glasses and blunt-cut hair lolled around on sofas, riffling Penguin Classics provocatively… But it wasn’t just intellectual experiences. They were peddling emotional ones, too. For fifty bucks, I learned, you could ‘relate without getting close.’ For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartok records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack.
Woody Allen
Latia returned, coming around the curve and stepping through the glass. "Yes, it's our path," she reported. "And it seems to be near the ogre fen."Oh? How do you know?" Esk asked."Oh, nothing specific. Trees twisted into pretzels, boulders cracked with hairy fist marks on them, dragons slinking about as if terrified of anything on two legs. Perhaps I am mistaken.
Piers Anthony
At the very moment Mrs. Bentley was smiling down upon them with her yellow mask face, around a corner like an elfin band came an ice-cream wagon. It jingled out icy melodies, as crisp and rimmed as crystal wine-glasses tapped by an expert, summoning all. The children sat up, turning their heads, like sunflowers after the sun. (Season of Disbelief)
Ray Bradbury
Veda began it, but when she finished it, or whether she finished it, Mildred never quite knew. Little quivers went through her and they kept going through her the rest of the night, during the supper party, when Veda sat with the white scarf wound around her throat, during the brief half hour, while she undressed Veda, and put the costume away; in the dark, while she lay there alone, trying to sleep, not wanting to sleep. This was the climax of Mildred's life.
James M. Cain