“... life is a flickering candle we all carry around. A gust of wind, a meaningless accident, a microsecond of carelessness, and it's out. Forever.”

“What an ambiance, and such a pity I'm alone: Candles giving off their glow, gusts of wind and the light tapping of rain on the windowpane - a massage for the mind. And a comforting one, too.”

“I’m thinking we should have a vibrator ceremony. Maybe we can all stand around inthe dead of night, carrying candles and chanting while she buries them in her backyard,”

“Maybe there is another who sees life not as a flickering candle but as a torch that can illuminate an undiscovered world.”

“Drear ritual turned its wheel. The ferment of the heart, within these walls, was mocked by every length of sleeping shadow. The passions, no greater than candle flames, flickered in Time's yawn, for Gormenghast, huge and adumbrate, out-crumbles all.”

“Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.”