Paraic O'Donnell

“I am not myself. It was a common enough form of words. It was what people said of themselves at such times as these. Perhaps it was not so much out of the ordinary. But the words were not right, not for this. It was a worse thing than becoming someone else, a more awful thing. There was a lack, when he sought himself, an incompleteness. He reached inward and found absences. He felt it when he tried to right himself, stumbling on a skewed board; the heft gone at his centre. Derelict—that was the word. He was derelict, or would be soon. He would stand day and night in the unseen weather, sheltering nothing living.”
― Paraic O'Donnell, The Maker of Swans

“He was a monster always, and filled with jealousy, but my father restrained him. Once he was gone, well …”
― Paraic O'Donnell, The House on Vesper Sands