The Underground Man

He must have gone straight from the warmth of the womb to the awful chill of the jar,

The world, one might say, is nothing more than a vast burial ground on which we briefly picnic.

trepanation kit.

As the minutes crept by and the book-hunt pressed on I thought I saw him grow increasingly discouraged, until at last he stepped back from one shelf with an expression of great suspicion on his face – as if the books had been guilty of conspiring against him. He turned slowly, slowly … listening, it seemed, for the scurrying footfalls of his prey’s

even the most patronizing, puffed-up doctors do not escape the earth’s deadly pull.

Huge trunks were being wheeled in every direction and there were kisses and handshakes and embraces and much waving of handkerchiefs as we set off.

a tale is remotely worth telling then one might tell it a dozen times.

when a man died and became redundant he would be taken up to the attic of the world.

no great weeping when I go. I did not even manage to marry the woman I loved