Because there was only one thing worse than dying. And that was knowing you were going to die. And where. And how. (“Death Ship”)

I could never write about strange kingdoms. I could never do Harry Potter or anything like that. Even when I did science-fiction, I didnt write about foreign planets and distant futures. I certainly never did fantasies about trolls living under bridges.

How long did it take for a past to die?

As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide.

Memory was such a worthless thing, really. Nothing it dealt with was attainable. It was concerned with phantom acts and feelings, with all that was uncapturable except in thought. It was without satisfaction.

If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease. . . Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about their lives.

Because there was only one thing worse than dying. And that was knowing you were going to die. And where. And how. (“Death Ship”)