Michael E. > Michael's Quotes

“Around, around the sun we go:
The moon goes round the earth.
We do not die of death:
We die of vertigo.”
― Archibald MacLeish, Collected Poems, 1917-1982

“Here dwells a snake, one thousand miles long
Coiled, one thousand miles deep
Eyes like candy, it has eyes like candy
Hard and blue, but soft as kittens feet
Out of sight or in the element of light
It could be a devil, it could be an angel
With spiders inside a vision from hell
Its spine is a vertical scream
Slow as concrete, blurred as a dream
Fueled by inertia, depth, radius, and velocity,
Its soul--a twisted wreckage of despair and pain
And the spiders inside are just praying for rain
Killing time killing time
And praying for rain
One thousand miles deep”
― James O'Barr

“I only met Mad Sweeney twice, alive," he said. "The first time I thought he was a world-class jerk with the devil in him. The second time I thought he was a major fuckup and I gave him the money to kill himself. He showed me a coin trick I don't remember how to do, gave me some bruises, and claimed he was a leprechaun. Rest in peace, Mad Sweeney.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“But until the genetic code was cracked in the 1960s, we did not know what we now know: that all life is one; seaweed is your distant cousin and anthrax one of your advanced relatives.”
― Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters