The universe and its design is often one of arbitrary horror.

For a moment, she thought it natural in a way seeing a plane fall from the sky can seem natural, too. The horror comes later.

It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. ("The Troll")

The universe has become not only conscious and aware of itself but capable in some respects of choosing its path into the future--though all three, the consciousness, the knowledge, and the choice, are dispersed over a vast crowd of beings, acting both individually and collectively.

In the words of Lynne McTaggart: "Living consciousness somehow is the influence that turns the possibility of something into something real. The most essential ingredient in creating our universe is the consciousness that observes it.

When in the puppet-show of dreams we hold in hand the strings of quite a number of actors, controlling their actions and their speech, we are not aware of this being so. Only one of them is myself, the dreamer. In him I act and speak immediately, while I may be awaiting eagerly and anxiously what another one will reply