“For Hell and the foul fiend that rulesGod's everlasting fiery jails(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,Are senseless stories, idle tales,Dreams, whimseys, and no more.”

“After Death nothing is, and nothing, death,The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.Let the ambitious zealot lay asideHis hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;Let slavish souls lay by their fearNor be concerned which way nor whereAfter this life they shall be hurled.Dead, we become the lumber of the world,And to that mass of matter shall be sweptWhere things destroyed with things unborn are kept.Devouring time swallows us whole.Impartial death confounds body and soul.For Hell and the foul fiend that rulesGod's everlasting fiery jails(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,Are senseless stories, idle tales,Dreams, whimseys, and no more.”

“How deep was the grim sorter of the dark and the foul going to send me?”

“One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory.You must remember this.”

“People keep a dog and are ruled by this dog, and even Schopenhauer was ruled in the end not by his head, but by his dog. This fact is more depressing than any other.”

“She idly stroked his head in the way one might stroke a dog.”