Francis

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. ”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“At the south-eastern corner of the physical domain, near to the Centre of the Land, is to be found a gaming hall wherein the Master Angles play at Trilliards, this being what their Awe-full game is rightly called. The intricacies of their play determine the trajectories of lives in the First Borough, such lives being subject to the four eternal forces that the Angles represent. These are Authority, Severity, Mercy and Novelty, as symbolised respectively by Castle, Death’s-head, Cross and Phallus. The Arch-Builder Gabriel governs the Castle pocket, Uriel the Death’s-head, Mikael the Cross and Raphael the Phallus.”
― Alan Moore, Jerusalem

“They fold up into you. You fold up into us. We fold up into Him.”
This seemed to both intrigue and satisfy the parson, who hummed thoughtfully before he ventured one last question to the amiable artisan.
“I see. And might I ask if, anywhere in this ingenious arrangement, any of us ever truly had Free Will?”
The lanky angle sounded somehow mournful and apologetic as he answered with a syllable that was apparently the same in English as in his own tongue.
“No.”
After a well-timed pause as if before the punch line of a joke, he went on to pronounce another angle-word that Michael understood almost immediately.
“Dyimoust?”
What this meant was “Did you miss it?”
― Alan Moore, Jerusalem