Tom gets by, Navidson succeeds. Tom just wants to be, Navidson must become. And yet despite such obvious differences, anyone who looks past Tom's wide grin and considers his eyes will find surprisingly deep pools of sorrow. Which is how we know they are brothers, because like Tom, Navidson's eyes share the same water.

Come morning I found the day as I have found every other day--without relief or explanation.

He [Zampano] probably would of insisted on corrections and edits, he was his own harshest critic, but I've come to believe errors, especially written errors, are often the only markers left by a solitary life: to sacrifice them is to lose the angels of personality, the riddle of a soul. In this case a very old soul. A very old riddle.

My hands resemble some ancient tree: the roots that bind up the earth, the rock and the ceaselessly nibbling wordms.

I believe the structure of 'House of Leaves' is far more difficult to explain than it is to read. And while I'd like to lay claim to some extraordinary act of originality, truth is I'm only taking advantage of capabilities inherent in everyone.

Even the brightest magnesium flare can do little against such dark except blind the eyes of the one holding it. Thus one craves what by seeing one has in fact not seen.

Here then at long last is my darkness. No cry of light, no glimmer, not even the faintest shard of hope to break free across the hold.