“A silent dark...as black as a moonless lake, as a ravine's wings, darkness there and nothing more, merely this and nothing more...”

“These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light.”

“Nothing but water -- an ever-moving swell; nothing but waves, swiftly forming and instantly dying; nothing but depths; dark, fathomless depths; and nothing but sky, scudding white clouds, puffy and intangible. This was the living world, nothing besides, nothing else but sea. No winter or summer, no hills or ravines.”

“Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.”

“Perhaps, too, you will then believe that nothing is more wonderful, nothing more fantastic than real life, and that all that a writer can do is to present it as "in a glass, darkly".”

“...science has "explained" nothing; ...the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness....”