Athelstan

“Tilting back in his chair he framed questions for the quaking ovoid of lamplight on the ceiling to pose to him: Supposing there be any soul to listen and you died tonight? They’d listen to my death. No final word? Last words are only words. You can tell me, paradigm of your own sinister genesis construed by a flame in a glass bell. I’d say I was not unhappy. You have nothing. It may be the last shall be first. Do you believe that? No. What do you believe? I believe that the last and the first suffer equally. Pari passu. Equally? It is not alone in the dark of death that all souls are one soul. Of what would you repent? Nothing. Nothing? One thing. I spoke with bitterness about my life and I said that I would take my own part against the slander of oblivion and against the monstrous facelessness of it and that I would stand a stone in the very void where all would read my name. Of that vanity I recant all.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

“وهكذا، عندما نكون تعساء، فإننا نحس بمحنة الآخرين بصورة أفضل. إن الإحساس لا يتبدد، بل إنه يشتد....”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights

“The dreamer—if you want an exact definition—is not a human being, but a creature of an intermediate sort.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights

“Mr Suttree in what year did your greatuncle Jeffrey pass away?
It was in 1884.
Did he die by natural causes?
No sir.
And what were the circumstances surrounding his death?
He was taking part in a public function when the platform gave way.
Our information is that he was hanged for a homicide.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Suttree