"...I've committed to nothing...and that's just suicide...by tiny, tiny increments."
— Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)

"She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her."
— Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)

"Over the years I have forged intimate familial ties with these characters, who are reflections of a portion of myself. Consequently, even a character who appeared only once in a short story waits now in the wings, concealed by the curtain, for his next appearance on-stage. Not one of them has ever broken free of his familial ties with me and disappeared for ever - at least, not within the confines of my heart."
— Shusaku Endo (The Final Martyrs)