Thomas Nadge

“It would seem as if the world were absolutely divided into two classes--the radiating and the absorbing; the first receiving from nature, and the second from man. In the first, are the holy brotherhood of prophets and the poets, and in the second, the poor slaves of sympathy--the knaves and fools--the impostors who play upon its well-known laws, and, deceiving themselves as well as others, may well be said to 'know not what they do.”
― Charles Wilkins Webber, Spiritual Vampirism

“He saw very clearly how all his life led only to this moment and all after led nowhere at all. He felt something cold and soulless enter him like another being and he imagined that it smiled malignly and he had no reason to believe it would ever leave.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

“Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol