The Isle of Blood

But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.

There are those who labor in the darkness, that the rest of us might live in the light.

She hated him and loved him, longed for him and loathed him, and cursed herself for feeling anything at all

Have you fallen in love, Will Henry?" "That's stupid." "What is? Love, or my question?" "I don't know." "You don't know? You've tried that trick once. What do you suppose it will work better the second time?" "I don't love her. She bothers me." "You have just defined the very thing you denied.

Please, do not leave me, Will Henry. I would not survive it. You were nearly right. What Mr. Kendall was, I am always on the brink of becoming. And you - I do not pretend to know how or even why - but you pull me back from the precipice. You are the one... You are the one thing that keeps me Human.

Perhaps God waits for us to be empty, so he may fill us with himself.

You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean. You will.

And red is not the color of apples or roses or the dresses that pretty girls wear in the summertime. That is not the color of red at all.

He stiffened and said with great dignity, "I am a natural scientist. We are accustomed to dealing with shit.

Just because a man is a homicidal maniac doesn't make him wrong.

What of men? I can't think of anything more banal. I have no doubt — no doubt whatsoever — that once it has obtained the means to do so, the species will wipe itself off the face of the earth. There is no mystery to it; it is our nature. Oh, one might delve into the particulars, but really, what can we say about the species that invented murder? What can we say?

To show mercy is not naïve. To hold out against the end of hope is not stupidity or madness. It is fundamentally human. Of course... We are all doomed; we are all poisoned from our birth by the rot of stars. That does not mean we should succumb...to the seductive fallacy of despair, the dark tide that would drown us. You may think I'm stupid, you may call me a madman and a fool, but at least I stand upright in a fallen world.

Is it any wonder the power this man held over me - this man who did not run from his demons like most of us do, but embraced them as his own, clutching them to his heart in a choke-hold grip. He did not try to escape them by denying them or drugging them or bargaining with them. He met them where they lived, in the secret place most of us keep hidden. Warthrop was Warthrop down to the marrow of his bones, for his demons defined him; they breathed the breath of life into him; and without them, he would go down, as most of us do, into the purgatorial fog of a life unrealized.

Miss Marks, you see, makes her living by...entertaining young, and not so young, sailors...or any other members of the armed forced, or civilians, who enjoy...being entertained by ladies who...entertain.

Dr. Warthrop chopped off my finger with a butcher knife.

Spring. Blooms break forth from the startled earth. The sky laughs. The trees, abashed, dress themselves in verdant green. And the heavens are lush with starts. Redeem the time, the stars sing down. Redeem the dream. And the boy waking in the land of broken rocks, the dry land wet with spring rain, waking in the place where two dreams cross--the dream where seeds grow into trees of gold and the dream of the box that he cannot open.

It is a very thin line between us and the abyss, Will Henry,' he said. 'For most it is like that line out there, where the sea meets the sky. They see it. They cannot deny the evidence of their eyes, but they never cross it. They cannot cross it; though they chase it for a thousand years, it will forever stay where it is. Do you realize it took our species more than ten millennia to realize that simple fact? That the line is unreachable, that we live on a ball and not on a plate? Most of us do, anyway. Men like Jacob Torrance and John Kearns ... Those kinds of men still live on a plate. Do you understand what I mean?' I nodded. I thought I did.

It is exceedingly odd to see a piece of yourself apart from yourself.

Adolphus is not at his desk. That means he is somewhere in the Monstrumarium, has gone home for the day, or is dead.

It is a dark and dirty business, Will Henry. And you are well on your way." He patted my knee, not to congratulate, I think, but to console. His tone was sad and bitter. "You are well on your way.

What is it? I remembered thinking in panic. What is it? Why did I want to follow this man? What was it about the monstrumologist that consumed me? What demon of the pit chewed and gnawed upon my soul like Judas’ in the innermost circle of hell? What did it look like? What was its face? If I could name the nameless thing, if I could put a face upon the faceless thing, perhaps I could free myself from its ravenous embrace.

He had noticed my bandaged hand. "An accident," Warthrop said tersely. "Dr. Warthrop chopped off my finger with a butcher knife." Von Helrung's brow knotted up in confusion. "By accident?" "No," I answered. "That part was on purpose.

Afterward I told his widow, "Your husband is dead, but at least he died laughing.' I think she took some comfort in that. It is the second-best way to die, Will Henry." He did not say what the best way was.

There is nothing left when you reach the center of everything, just the pit of bones inside the innermost circle.

You could see the smile coming a year before it arrived.

A man lies upon the floor, spreads his arms, and transforms himself into a ship of a thousand sails.

I left them there for the flies and the birds and the sun and the wind. In the silence outside the Tour du Silence, I left them. Where the faceless dead faced the sky, I left them there at the center of the world.

Oculus Dei, the eyes of God.

England is home to one of the most unattractive people on earth!" He glared at Walker. "You are the perfect example.

Will isn't my little bastard assistant. Will is Pellinore Warthrop's little bastard assistant.