“So perished the hope founded on the wonderful being who thus ceased to be. In the study room to which he was never to return, the water buttercups he had brought from the country were still fresh.”

“The leaving him thus did not a little gratify one that was more fond of travelling than of returning home to be buried in his own country; for he used often to say, that the way to heaven was the same from all places, and he that had no grave had the heavens still over him.”

“Beckett found Eve, whose lips were still stained red with blood. Beckett found it hard to focus as he wondered if he was part vampire—he wanted to taste that blood so badly.”

“It is like the thirsty traveller who at first sincerely sought the water of knowledge, but who later, having found it plain perhaps, proceeded to temper his cup with the salt of doubt so that his thirst now becomes insatiable though he drinks incessantly, and that in thus drinking the water that cannot slake his thirst, he has forgotten the original and true purpose for which the water was sought.”

“And then their voices stopped and their souls stood still and they ceased being who they had been. Because who they were had always been determined by him.”

“He never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning;but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope,as long as despair could be postponed.”