"Aliens had nothing to do with Stonehenge at all, it’s ridiculous. They built the pyramids for sure but they had nothing to do with Stonehenge."
— Nigel Tufnel
"Hastein sailed on till he came to a city so big, so white, so splendid, so marbled, that what else could it be but Rome? But its defences were so strong that Hastein judged it impervious to assault. So the vikings hit on a ruse: they sent messengers to the city to tell how Hastein and his following were good men expelled from their own country and sea-tossed to this distant coast. They were weary and hungry, needed peace and provisions, and their sick chieftain lay at death’s door. When next day they came to town that door was passed; all he now required of this vale of tears was a Christian burial. The townsmen agreed to provide one; a long procession of sorrowing vikings followed the coffin on to the graveside, where at the moment of committal the ‘dead’ Hastein rose in his coffin, drove his sword through the officiating bishop, and led his men on a riot of slaughter through the city streets."
— Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings
"
The heavens thundered, the earth gave echo,
and there was I, standing between them.
A man there was, grim his expression,
just like a Thunderbird his features were frightening.
His hands were a lion’s paws, his claws an eagle’s talons,
he seized me by the hair, he overpowered me.
I struck him, but he sprang back like a skipping rope,
he struck me, and like a raft capsized me.
Underfoot he crushed me, like a mighty wild bull,
drenching my body with poisonous slaver.
“Save me, my friend! … “
You were afraid of him, but you …
He struck me and turned me into a dove.
He bound my arms like the wings of a bird,
to lead me captive to the house of darkness, seat of Irkalla:
to the house which none who enters ever leaves,
on the path that allows no journey back,
to the house whose residents are deprived of light,
where soil is their sustenance and clay their food,
where they are clad like birds in coats of feathers,
and see no light, but dwell in darkness.
— The Epic of Gilgamesh
"I am a psychiatrist. I have been for 27 years. I’m completely worn out. Year after year, listening to patients who aren’t satisfied with their lives, who want to have fun, who want me to help them with that - it wears you out, I can tell you. My life isn’t exactly a lot of fun either. People demand so much. That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn after all these years. They demand to be happy, at the same time as they are egocentric, selfish, and ungenerous. Well, I would like to be honest. I would like to say that they are quite simply mean, most of them. Spending hour after hour in therapy, trying to make a mean person happy… There’s no point. You can’t do it. I’ve stopped doing it. These days, I just prescribe pills. The stronger, the better."
— Roy Andersson’s You, the Living
"God uttered the words martyr and victim as if his tongue were made of milk and honey, but Jesus suddenly felt a chill go through his limbs as if the mist had closed over him and the Devil looked at him with an enigmatic expression which combined scientific interest with grudging compassion."
— Jose Saramago, The Gospel According To Jesus Christ
"I got up and went to the window. A big moon was laid over the mountains that went around the city. It was a white moon and covered with scars. Any damn fool could imagine a face there."
— Raymond Carver, what we talk about when we talk about love: I Could See the Smallest Things
"We’re blind moles. Creeping through the soil, feeling with our snouts. We know nothing. I perceived this… now I don’t know where to go. Screech with fear, only. Run away."
— Philip K Dick, The Man In the High Castle
"Always remember this. If you have success, you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work. They always praise you for the worst aspects. It never fails."
— Ernest Hemingway
"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
— Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
"These days there are more and more suicide bombers. Consequently, there are less and less suicide bombers."
— John Cooper Clarke
