“Of all the mysteries, Darius,” the old man began. “Perhaps the greatest is Mind. For all the ignorance in the world, the assaults against reason by tyrants and rabble, no one has been able to stop it. Just the opposite. All those cultures that have abandoned Mind have paid the price, lost their way and decayed, succumbing to the darkness. And yet Mind has forged ahead.”

“They are the lost books,” he turned his head, grasping his cane and raising it aloft, as if speaking more to the books than to me. “The destroyed books, the burnt books, the missing, the stolen, the drowned, the forgotten. Those ruined by water, fire, mold, man’s malice or neglect or, perchance…time itself. They’re all here, every last one, Darius. At least for a time.”

“...she went about her business in a way that put me in mind of an old matchbook. You can scratch the head against the strip in the same way you always have but you are not going to get any kind of spark.”

“Their little life is entirely controlled by the organization of the world. They think as the world thinks. They take their opinions ready-made from their favorite newspaper. Their very appearance is controlled by the world and its changing fashions. They all conform; it must be done; they dare not disobey; they are afraid of the consequences. That is tyranny, this is absolute control—clothing, hair style, everything, absolutely controlled. The mind of the world! ... Most lives are being controlled by it and governed by it, all their opinions, their language, the way they spend their money, what they desire, where they go, where they spend their holidays; it is all controlled, governed completely ... by this world, the mind of the world, the age of propaganda, the age of advertising, the mass mind, the mass man, the mass individual, without knowing it. Is it not tragic? But that is man in sin ... he is controlled by the mind of the world.”

“We have all lost our possessions and many of us our homes," he said. "But these losses, severe though they may seem, remind us of what no person can take, and that is our minds and our imaginations.”

“Everything was almost the same with her, but she went about her business in a way that put me in mind of an old matchbook. You can scratch the head against the strip in the same way you always have, but you are not going to get any kind of spark.”

“All I ever wanted, nira I expected: Nonette, upon whom my life pivots.The name I give my fire when I lay down, defenseless before its majestic awfulness.A little no, a little negation. A French girly pout, the syllables for which have been found at last.All my hurt dug up, exposed for dissection in the glaring light, and finally melted away by the loving caresses of her yielding thighs.And the girl who took such simple job in this terrible duty.Nonette.”