Pauline cried out; and as she heard her own vain emphasis, added with a little despairing laugh: “How can I tell you? I only want everything to be as it is—for myself, I mean.” “Change,” said the shape. “I don’t change.” Pauline cried out: “And if it changes, it shall change as it must, and I shall want it as it is then.” She laughed again at the useless attempt to explain.

Charles Williams, Descent Into Hell [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Williams Descent into Hell cried out vain emphasis despair how can i tell you want everything as it is change as it must want it them useless to explain

Consider also:

  1. A Study in Emerald
  2. “Several times, of late, I have seen films where the tinkers had improved a good novel out of existence. The beginning, end, and middle of the story had been dexterously amputated or ‘arranges.’ We were not informed of the relationship existing between the various characters; the motives for their acts were utterly obscure. A ‘situation’ would ultimately arise–and then, instead of a denouement, the film stopped suddenly! One felt as if one had somehow got into a lunatic asylum.”
  3. Too Like the Lightning
  4. He giggled like a hyena when Booker didn’t get it. “There’s no drugs.” “You said they were mules,” Booker insisted. “They are,” Rask crowed. “Not heroin – organs. Why the fuck do you think I told you not to shoot the truck?”
  5. “I have not me tragedy, no, not in this life! Yet, whether I have spewed their doctrines upon the tables of the Law or into the troughs, at least I have not cast away the flesh of dreams.”