Graham switched on the lights and bloodstains shouted at him from the walls, from the mattress and the floor. The very air had screams smeared on it. He flinched from the noise in this silent room full of dark stains drying.

Thomas Harris, Red Dragon [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Harris Red Dragon lights bloodstains shouted air screams smeared noise silent dark stains

Consider also:

  1. “C. Agrippa here adds the following instructions, copied from Boethius:—’The guides on the road to perfection are Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the means to attain this object are Purity, Temperance, Self-control, Chastity, Tranquility of Mind, Contemplation, Adoration (Ecstasy), Aspiration, and Virtue.'”
  2. “When HumPop was fighting back, we were at war—we were soldiers, fighting for our liberty and the chance at our own world made in our own image—but once the humans retreated into whatever safety they could find, we instead became hunters”
  3. “The cure for the whole misery of poverty is the development of the appreciation of those things that are really worth while.”
  4. “Lamaseries and lodges, orders, monasteries, convents, and places of refuge have been established, where people might strive to attain a higher life, unimpeded by the aggressions and annoyances of the external world of illusions. Their original purpose was beyond a doubt very commendable. If in the course of time many such institutions have become degraded and lost their original character; if instead of being places for the performance of the noblest and most difficult kind of labour, they have become places of refuge for the indolent, idle, and superstitious; it is not the fault of that principle which first caused such institutions to be organised, but it is the consequence of the knowledge of the higher nature of man and his powers and destiny having been lost, and with the loss of that knowledge, the means for the attainment, the original aim, was naturally lost and forgotten.”
  5. “Maybe I’m not really interested in peoples’ secrets. Maybe it’s the sense of violation I’m after. That’s probably even worse.”