“I was taught that at the heart of all people, all things, lay raw self-interest. Sure, you could dress a person up nice, put pretty words in his mouth, but underneath the silk tie and pressed shirt was an animal. A territorial, hungry animal anxious to satisfy his own needs.”

— Megan Mayhew Bergman, Birds of a Lesser Paradise

“Down—still unceasingly—still inevitably down! I gasped and struggled at each vibration. I shrunk convulsively at it’s every sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls with the eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they closed themselves spasmodically at the descent, although death would have been a relief, oh, how unspeakable!”

— Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum