“Van sealed the letter, found his Thunderbolt pistol in the place he had visualized, introduced one cartridge into the magazine, and translated it into its chamber. Then, standing before a closet mirror, he put the automatic to his head, at the point of the pterion, and pressed the comfortably concaved trigger. Nothing happened - or perhaps everything happened, and his destiny simply forked at that instant, as it probably does sometimes at night, especially in a strange bed, at stages of great happiness or great desolation, when we happen to die in our sleep, but continue our normal existence, with no perceptible break in the fakes serialization, on the following, neatly prepared morning, with a spurious past discreetly but firmly attached behind.”

“He sleeps although so much he was denied. He lived and when his dear love left him died. It happened of itself, in the easy way that in the morning night time follows day”

“He can act a bit loner-ish, but I think he's some serial killer waiting to happen; he's just his own best company sometimes. And he's comfortable with that. I guess there's nothing wrong with that.”

“Does it ever happen to you," Natasha said to her brother, when they had settled in the sitting room, "does it ever happen to you that you feel there's nothing more - nothing; that everything good has already happened? And it's not really boring, but sad?""As if it doesn't!" he said. "It's happened to me that everything's fine, everybody's merry, and it suddenly comes into my head that it's all tiresome and we all ought to die....”

“He was possessed of a belief that nothing existed, or to be more precise, that only when things were perceived could we be sure that they existed. He troubled himself in arguments, therefore, that when he was not in his chamber, and no one else was in his chamber, there was no one who could say beyond a shadow of a doubt that his desk still existed... or that the bed had not simply frayed into atoms...[Dr. 03-01] developed the habit of quietly leaving company quite suddenly and charging above-stairs to his bedchamber, throwing open the door, and crying "Ah ha!" He found, always, that matter had retained its dubious solidity in his absence; but this did not deter him.”

“Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.”