“I had passed on from life, from the world of struggles and hardship and big fat women with annoying laughs, and entered a glorious new existence of utter peace, and joy, and love.And then some git brought me back to life”

“We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.”

“I had lost some of my naivete and gained strength. These women with their pointless scheming could not contain me, and I watched the volatile world of the gynaeceum with a detached eye. The Forbidden City had buried my youth, and in the monastery, I had died and come back to life. Friends, enemies and mistresses had all disappeared. I was a ghost from a lost world, still going from one season to the next and still living for one man alone.”

“Yes, I drank some of the ancient blood and it changed me. If I'm right...If the vellum is right, the world is dead. Everyone! But I was brought back to life by the blood.”

“I had seen these transformations, people who had lost their will to live, coming back from their zombie states and radiating a new life force from their eyes.”

“Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life──the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within──can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.”