In every trade save war men of talent and vigor prosper. In war they die.

Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupations of men engaged in rash undertakings.

I will do what I promised." He whispered. "No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.

The carrion birds sat about the topmost corners of the houses with their wings outstretched in attitudes of exhortation like dark little bishops.

They trekked out along the crescent sweep of beach, keeping to the firmer sand below the tidewrack. They stood, their clothes flapping softly. Glass floats covered with a gray crust. The bones of seabirds. At the tideline a woven mat of weeds and the ribs of fishes in their millions stretching along the shore as far as the eye could see like an isocline of death. One vast salt sepulchre. Senseless. Senseless.

To see God everywhere is to see Him nowhere.

How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?