Yet I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us . . . the observers . . . every person in this house. And I think---I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy.

As far as God goes, I _am_ a nonbeliever. Still am. But when it comes to a devil---well, that's something else.

God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.

I tried to make every bit of it as creepy as I could. And I had the same response you do. I feel the same way. The hospital scenes, that procedure was so real.

Your thoughts are too dull to entertain.

Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men's eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all.

Procrastination is what we often call 'resistance.