“I assure you, Constable Morgan, I am quite sane, as I understand the word, perhaps the sanest person in this room, for I suffer from no illusions. I have freed myself, you see, from the pretense that burdens most men. Much like our prey, I do not impose order where there is none; I do not pretend there is any more than what there is, or that you and I are anything more than what we are. That is the essence of their beauty, Morgan, the aboriginal purity of their being, and why I admire them.”

“Please, do not leave me, Will Henry. I would not survive it. You were nearly right. What Mr. Kendall was, I am always on the brink of becoming. And you - I do not pretend to know how or even why - but you pull me back from the precipice. You are the one... You are the one thing that keeps me Human.”

“Awaale cursed softly, but he was smiling. "I am only saying God might have sent me for the little one--not for you.""That makes more sense," I replied. "I was going to kill her, Awaale. The gun was an inch from her head and I was pulling the trigger...""But you did not.""No. I saw he was feeding, and I panicked.""Ah, you mean you were meant to save him.""I am not meant to save anyone!" I snapped. I was suddenly very angry. "I am here to serve the doctor, who's here to serve... to serve science, and that's all. That's all.""Oh, walaalo." He sighed. "You are more pirate than I ever was.”

“What of men? I can't think of anything more banal. I have no doubt — no doubt whatsoever — that once it has obtained the means to do so, the species will wipe itself off the face of the earth. There is no mystery to it; it is our nature. Oh, one might delve into the particulars, but really, what can we say about the species that invented murder? What can we say?”

“What is it? I remembered thinking in panic. What is it? Why did I want to follow this man? What was it about the monstrumologist that consumed me? What demon of the pit chewed and gnawed upon my soul like Judas’ in the innermost circle of hell? What did it look like? What was its face? If I could name the nameless thing, if I could put a face upon the faceless thing, perhaps I could free myself from its ravenous embrace.”

“You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean. You will.”

“Between the sleeping and the waking, it is there. Between the rising and the resting, it is there.It is always there. It gnaws on my heart. It chews on my soul.I turn aside and see it. I stop my ears and hear it. I cover myself and feel it.There are no human words for what I mean.It is the language of the bare bough and the cold stone, pronounced in the fell wind's sullen whisper and the metronomic drip-drip of the rain. It is the song the falling snow sings and the discordant clamour of sunlight ripped apart by the canopy and miserly filtered down.It is what the unseeing eye sees. It is what the deaf ear heres.It is the romantic ballad of death's embrace; the solemn hymn of offal dripping from bloody teeth; the lamentation of the bloated corpse rotting in the sun; the graceful ballet of maggots twisting in the ruins of God's temple.Here in this gray land, we have no name. We are the carcasses reflected in the yellow eye.Our bones are bleached within our skin; our empty sockets regard the crow.Here in this shadow country, our tiny voices scratch like a fly's wing against unmoving air.Ours is the language of imbeciles, the gibberish of idiots. The root and the vine have more to say than us.”