J. P. Wiske

“The worst does sometimes happen. As men we have to count on that possibility, have to arm ourselves against it, and above all we have to realize that since absurdities necessarily occur, and nowadays manifest themselves with more and more forcefulness, we can prevent ourselves from being destroyed by them and can make ourselves relatively comfortable upon this earth only if we humbly include these absurdities in our thinking, reckon with the inevitable fractures and distortions of human reason when it attempts honestly to deal with reality. We have to realize that without this knowledge we are in danger of making an absolute of absurdity, of taking it “in itself,” as though it were established somewhere outside the human mind; we would then be forced to regard the absurd as an error which it was within our power to avoid; on the basis of which illusion we might find ourselves executing the whole world out of a kind of defiant morality one we undertook to try to establish a flawless rational structure, for its very flawless perfection would be its deadly mendacity and a sign of the most frightful blindness.”
― Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Pledge

“All deaths are sudden, no matter how gradual the dying may be.”
― Michael McDowell, Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga

“No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshippers' description. I don't see how they could survive their own insanity.”
― Glen Cook, The White Rose

“Sometimes I lie awake and hear noises in the house, and despite myself I’m frightened. Then I hear some familiar sound—a clock strikes, or a train whistles somewhere—and my fear abates. But why should those sounds comfort me, and others frighten me? Why couldn’t a ghost make the sound of a train?”
― Michael Cisco, The Narrator