“I'm Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose.”

“Put out the light and then put out the light.”

“Should we put out the light? And then put out the light. But once put out thy light, I cannot give it vital breath again. It needs must wither.”

“It was the night that the power went out in Berkeley that he'd finished Joyce's Finnegan's Wake by the light of a candle. Sometimes you need to be forced to study what's right in front of you.”

“It's so easy to wish for death when nothing's wrong with you! It's so easy to fall in love with death, and I've been all my life, and seen it's most faithful worshippers crumble in the end, screaming just to live, as if all the dark veils and the lillies and the smell of candles, and grandiose promises of the grave meant nothing. I knew that. But I always wished I was dead. It was a way to go on living”

“Suppose death had a heart to love and to release you, to whom would he turn this passion, would you chose a person from the crowd there. A person to suffer as you suffer.”

“Handsome enough’ is this Grim Reaper, Who can snuff all these ‘brief candles,’ every fluttering soul sucking the air, from this hall.”