“Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood.”

“Pagford, which by night was no more than a cluster of twinkling lights in a dark hollow far below, was emerging into chilly sunlight.”

“Blood shed stands, therefore, not for the release of life from the burden of the flesh, but for the bringing to an end of life in the flesh.”

“Why is this,” she asked, again in that dreamy tone, “so much more real than that? One’s night, one’s day, why is this so much more real? That I can’t forget the things from the day, and I can’t remember the things from the night?”

“My eyes feel all soft, all soft as flesh. I'm going to sleep.”

“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.”