E.S.

“To help us not to remember what we're afraid of, what the human race has invented whole religions to conceal. All religions are like stories people told by the fire when there was nothing but the fire and stories to keep off the cold and the dark, because people couldn't bear to know what was out there beyond the light.”
― Ramsey Campbell, Midnight Sun

“American feminism and American horror have been—for more than half a century—allies on issues of domestic abuse”
― Eleanor Johnson, Scream with Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism

“There are phases in history when defensive techniques progress more quickly than offensive techniques. During these periods, wars become rarer because the cost of attacking is higher than the cost of defending. But there are other times when offensive technologies gain the upper hand. These are the bloodiest ages, when wars break out more frequently, because attacking others is cheaper than defending what you have. ... These days, attack is cheaper than defence. Much cheaper. And the price keeps coming down.”
― Giuliano da Empoli, L'heure des prédateurs

“The fairies themselves, tradition taught, were eternally jealous of the solid blessings of mortals, and, clothed in invisibility, would crowd to weddings and wakes and fairs⁠—wherever good victuals, in fact, were to be found⁠—and suck the juices from fruits and meats⁠—in vain, for nothing could make them substantial.

Nor was it only food that they stole. In out-of-the-way country places it was still believed that corpses were but fairy cheats, made to resemble flesh and bone, but without any real substance⁠—otherwise, why should they turn so quickly to dust? But the real person, for which the corpse was but a flimsy substitute, had been carried away by the Fairies, to tend their blue kine and reap their fields of gillyflowers. The country people, indeed, did not always clearly distinguish between the Fairies and the dead. They called them both the “Silent People”; and the Milky Way they thought was the path along which the dead were carried to Fairyland.

Another tradition said that their only means of communication was poetry and music; and in the country poetry and music were still called “the language of the Silent People.”
― Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist