# Quote — Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

> The Atrocity is lost along with its secret cargo and all aboard . . . shhhhhhhhhhhh . . . and who would ever know of the pocket of air in that second hold where one man hid, having sealed the doors, creating a momentary bit of inside, a place to live in, to breathe in, a man who survived the blast and the water and instead lived to feel another kind of death, a closing in of such impenetrable darkness, far blacker than any Haitian night or recounted murder, though he did find a flashlight, not much against the darkness he could hear outside and nothing against the cold rushing in as this great coffin plummeted downwards, pressure building though not enough to kill him before the ship hit a shelf of rock and rested, knocks in the hull like divers knocking with hammers— though, he knows, there are no divers, only air bubbles and creaks lying about the future. He drops the flashlight, the bulb breaks, nothing to see anyway, losing air, losing his sense of his home, his daughters, his five blonde daughters and . . . and . . . he feels the shelf of rock give way and suddenly the ship rushes down again, no rock now, no earth, so black, and nothing to stop his final descent . . .

- Author: [Mark Z. Danielewski](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-z-danielewski.md)
- Book: [House of Leaves](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-z-danielewski/house-of-leaves.md)
- Page: 299
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves#The_Navidson_Record) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-z-danielewski/house-of-leaves/the-atrocity-is-lost

## More from this book

> German: "Must it be?"

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-z-danielewski/house-of-leaves/german-must-it-be.md)

> French: "The game is set. We are fucked."

p. 38 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-z-danielewski/house-of-leaves/french-the-game.md)

> "Through all the windows I only see infinity."

p. 646 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-z-danielewski/house-of-leaves/through-all-the.md)