John Gardner

He closed his eyes, still smiling. "Pick an apocalypse, any apocalypse. A sea of black oil and dead things. No wind. No light. Nothing stirring, not even an ant, a spider. A silent universe. Such is the end of the flicker of time, the brief hot fuse of events and ideas set off, accidentally, and snuffed out, accidentally, by man. Not a real ending of course, nor even a beginning. Mere ripple in Time's stream."

I am mad with joy.--At least I think it's joy.

"Importance is derived from the immanence of infinitude in the finite."

"Such is life," I said, and mocked a sigh. "Such is dignity."

"All systems are evil. All governments are evil. Not just a trifle evil. Monstrously evil."

"I've never seen a live hero before. I thought they were only in poetry. Ah, ah, it must be a terrible burden, though, being a hero--glory reaper, harvester of monsters! Everybody always watching you, weighing you, seeing if you're still heroic. You know how it is--he he! Sooner or later the harvest virgin will make her mistake in the haystack." I laughed.

The trees are dead. The days are an arrow in a dead man's chest.

"I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back."

Grendel is crazy,

O,O,O!

Thinks old Hrothgar

Makes it snow!

O happy Grendel! Fifteen glorious heroes, proud in their battle dress, fat as cows!

All pigs eat cheese.

Old Snaggle is a pig.

If Snaggle is sick and refuses to eat, try cheese.

Something is coming, strange as spring. I am afraid.