Quotes About Mystery

I shiver: whose feet are walking on my grave? Time, I plead to the air, just a little more time. That's all I need.

So many crucial events take place behind people's backs, when they aren't in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance.

Which way will the cat jump?

the gods often mumble

Nobody nowhere knows what time it is.

The lock splits. The iron gate swings open. She emerges, raises her arms towards the suddenly chilled moon. The world changes.

Fuck , thinks Stan. She knows about the chickens.

The leader had a beard and was wearing a caftan that looked as if it had been sewn by elves on hash.

But all doors used regularly are doors to the afterlife.

there are some things that do not fare well in high definition.

All fathers except mine are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers. But fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home the fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to them than meets the eye.

They'd like to see through me, but nothing is more opaque than absolute transparency.

Yes, they know her. They touch her lips, gather her words, fly away with the message, disappear into the dark. Pass through the membrane that separates this world from the unseen world that lies just underneath it.

Chemistry can be like magic. It can be merciless.

What will Ofwarren give birth to? A baby, as we all hope? Or something else, an Unbaby, with a pinhead or a snout like a dog's, or two bodies, or a hole in its heart or no arms, or webbed hands and feet? There's no telling. They could tell once, with machines, but that is now outlawed. What would be the point of knowing, anyway? You can't have them taken out; whatever it is must be carried to term.

You didn't need it anyway, it attracted too much attention. Better with only a shadow. Someone wants your shadow.

To go through all that and give birth to a shredder: it wasn't a fine thought. We didn't know exactly what would happen to the babies that didn't get passed, that were declared Unbabies. But we knew they were put somewhere, quickly, away.

But it's difficult to be grateful for the absence of an unknown quantity.

Now it's full night, clear, moonless and filled with stars, which are not eternal as was once thought, which are not where we think they are. If they were sounds, they would be echoes, of something that happened millions of years ago: a word made of numbers. Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by.

I will press this, somewhere. Under the mattress. Leave it there, for the next woman, the one who comes after me, to find. But there's someone in the room, behind me. I

I even spent a certain amount of time worrying about the Spiritualist doctrines: If The Other Side was so wonderful, why did the spirits devote most of their messages to warnings? Instead of telling their loved ones to avoid slippery stairs and unsafe cars and starchy foods, they should have been luring them over cliffs and bridges and into lakes, spurring them on to greater feats of intemperance and gluttony, in order to hasten their passage to the brighter shore.

Even guppies have their opacities.

How could a person be caught that way, in an instant, by a glance, the lift of an eyebrow, the curve of an arm? But he was.

He could never get used to her, she was fresh every time, she was a casketful of secrets.