preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place.

Mark nodded even though she couldn't see. He'd suddenly lost any desire to talk, and his plans for a perfect day washed away with the stream. The memories. They never let him go, not even for a half hour. They always had to rush back in, bringing all the horror.

I hear you're quite the writer. Quite the teacher's pet.""I... I don't know what you mean.""No? Then maybe you're in for a surprise. And maybe it won't be a nice one."Kate heard her voice lashing out, braver than she felt."I don't know what you're talking about. But nothing that pertains to me is any of your business.'The match hissed again. She saw his black, black eyes flickering."You're right. How inconsiderate of me."Shaken, Kate willed her feet to move her forward."You should be more careful," Pearce said. "Anyone could find your key. Anyone could get into your cabin."Kate whirled to face him. "I have a roommate. I'm not alone.""A roommate?" And he sounded like he was smiling... a dark strange smile as if she'd said something particularly funny. "If someone wanted to get you," Pearce said slowly, and another match went out, "a roommate wouldn't stop them. They'd just get you. Wouldn't they?

To feel our character, our personality, and our personal, hard-won history fade from being is to be exposed to whatever lies beneath these comforting, operational conveniences. What remains when the conscious and functioning self has been erased is mankind's fundamental condition _ irrational, violent, guilt-wracked, despairing, and mad.

When she had died, his anchor was gone and the world had burned from his untethered insanity.

(there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by an action which must appear to us an action of violent and willful madness, but which, on the other side of our appearances, is probably an action of health. ("Of Immortality")