Shehreyar

“Then, it was as though everything was stripped away: sensation, memory, self, even the notion of existence that underlies reality - all seemed to have vanished utterly, their passage marked only by the realisation that they had disappeared, before that too ceased to have any meaning, and for an indefinite, infinite instant, there was only the awareness of something; something that possessed no mind, no purpose and no thought, except the knowledge that it was.

After that came a rebuilding, a surfacing through layers of thought and development, learning and shape-taking, until something that was an individual, possessing shape and capable of being named, woke.”
― Iain M. Banks, Feersum Endjinn

“Your Grace," she said, "I have only one question. Do you wish this man crippled, or dead?”
― David Weber, Flag in Exile

“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.”
― Lemony Snicket

“His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light