I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude - and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.

The vision seemed to enter the house with me-the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart-the heart of a conquering darkness.

I saw him open his mouth wide. . . as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.

It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.

All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising.

Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it by threats, persuasion, or bribes.

The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage--who can tell?--but truth--truth stripped of its cloak of time.