“Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it’s absolutely cleansing. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain….Once; someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. ‘PLEASURE???? I said.’ ‘I don’t understand the question.’ I didn’t do it for the pleasure; I did it for the pain.”

“Then all at once she turned to me, her face pale, her eyes strangely alight. She said, “Is it possible to love someone so much, that it gives one a pleasure to hurt them? To hurt them by jealousy, I mean, and to hurt myself at the same time. Pleasure and pain, an equal mingling of pleasure and pain, just as an experiment, a rare sensation?”

“Alone at last. Oh, the pleasure of the pain. (Zarek)You really do suffer from insanity, don’t you? (Thanatos)Hardly. I have to say I enjoy every minute of it. (Zarek)”

“What you and I had was the most intense thing I’ve ever felt, but if it’s over for you, just kick me hard enough so I’ll remember the pain and stay out of your way.”

“This mark men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them, the mark of the beast from which they came. Pain! Pain and pleasure - they are for us, only so long as we wriggle in the dust... ”

“But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.”