David Muse

“Was it an hour, or a week before the light of the moon rose in the interior of my body? A bird with luminous wings flew in front of that full moon, and its head was as radiant as a point of light. That bird must be the Khu--this sweet bird of the night--a creature of divine intelligence loaned to us just so much as the Ren or the Sekhem. Yes, the Khu was a light in your mind while you lived, but in death, it must return to heaven. For the Khu was also eternal.”
― Norman Mailer, Ancient Evenings

“In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“The man who had just entered the shop was a short, slight, hunched, beetle-browed man, with long arms and very short bandy legs.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Life as it proceeds reveals, cooly and dispassionately, what lies behind the mask that each man wears. It would seem that everyone possesses several faces. Some people use only one all the time, and it then, naturally, becomes soiled and wrinkled. These are the thrifty sort. Others look after their masks in the hope of passing them on to their descendants. Others again are constantly changing their faces. But all of them, when they reach old age, realise one day that the mask they are wearing is their last and that it will soon be worn out, and then, from behind the last mask, the real face appears.”
― Sadegh Hedayat, The Blind Owl