“Early the following morning, for the first time in years, I tipped into my coffee a heaped spoon of sugar. I watched the confined, nut-brown disc of fluid turn then slow in its clockwise motion, then lose all purpose in a chaotic swell. Tempting, but I resisted a metaphor for my own existence.”

Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan

“As she stepped forward on the empty board, it was for her like walking into space. Space, such as the condos have shrill inklings off, and the cock-eagle glimpses through his blood.”

Titus Groan, Melvyn Peake.

‘The whispering tree,’ I murmured. How strange, that with just a few words something which I had always found unattractive was now transformed into a thing of beauty.

The House of Doors, Tan Tan Eng.

A large, pale moth fluted around the room and alighted on the rim of the lampshade, imprinting its shadow on the wall. I reached over to flick it away, but my hand was stayed by a voice in my head. The souls of the people we once loved, come to watch over us.

The House Of Doors, Tan Twan Eng