Xavier

“Alan Campbell opened one eye.

From somewhere in remote distances, muffled beyond sight or sound, his soul crawled back painfully, through subterranean corridors, up into his body again. Toward the last it moved to a cacophony of hammers and lights.

Then he was awake.

The first eye was bad enough. But, when he opened his second eye, such as rush of anguish flowed through his brain that he hastily closed them again.”
― John Dickson Carr, The Case of the Constant Suicides

“The poor fool hadn't realized that if all mankind shares a folly or an illusion, and likes to share it even knowing what it is, then the illusion is much more valuable and fine a kind of thing than the ass who wants to upset it.”
― John Dickson Carr