“Would that death were like this. Would that one would sleep and sleep and sleep forever.”

“It had been hard for months. Sleep would curl slowly around him while he was reading a book, sleep would trick him that he was awake, sleep would play the best movies.”

“I would have liked to catch hold of sleep at least once, just as I had been resolved to catch hold of death one day, to catch hold of the wings of the angel of sleep when it came for me, to grab it with two fingers like a butterfly after sneaking up on it from behind. [...] My sleep game was practice for the grand struggle with death.”

“I wondered what it would be like to die. Was it like going to sleep or like waking up? Was there no more time? Or did time go on forever?”

“Sleep would be so welcome. A warm blanket of black to erase everything else. Sleep without dreams. I've heard people talk about the sleep of the dead. Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that's what it's like, I wouldn't mind. If that's what dying is like, I wouldn't mind that at all.”

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”