George Knott

“Goddamn it,” Thomas said, gazing at her small cache. “Maybe God would be more generous if you swore less.” “God starves babies sometimes, and they don’t swear at all.”
― Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires

“At first, I kept my eyes tightly shut, but then I dared. I dared to look.

Merciful God in heaven, grant that I am mistaken, that what I thought I saw was but the product of my shattered nerves. I would like to think it was a threatening cloud, a wisp of smoke or fog, or a vestige of darkness.

In the distance, close to a horizon which it obliterated in its entirety, a formidable mask leered. Its eyes were skimming the countryside, just as a nightmarish prowler would peer over the ridge of a wall. No, no, they must have been two aquamarine holes cut through the disappearing gloom in the east, and nothing more. What else could it have been? You know how clouds assume the most fantastic shapes... I shall always repeat that it cannot have been anything else. Indeed, I am certain a being of such magnitude would not allow itself to be glimpsed by terrestrial creature... Else it would continue to spy on us in the small hours, continue to peer at the insignificant insects we are, and its heavy tread would make the bottom of the ocean tremble.”
― Jean Ray, My Own Private Spectres

“Man is born into sin. All because of Adam.”
Guillaume said, “Mostly Eve, my priest told us.”
Delphine looked up from the water now.
“That’s not fair.”
“How’s that?” said Guillaume.
“She was tempted by something stronger than her. Adam was tempted by a weaker creature. Or so we are told. If Eve was his inferior, his sin was greater. You can’t have it both ways.”
― Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires

“One scene stayed with de Chauliac forever, obsessing him, even though, mercifully, the rest would blur; he saw a devil with wide black wings gripped by two angels, who drove it down and seemed to speak in its ears as they fell; they hit the bend of the Rhone, sending up a great, illuminated plume of water visible from Orange.

Two angels and a devil had tumbled into the water.

Three angels came up.

Forgiveness, then, was possible even for the worst.”
― Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires