In Black Spring they knew that desperate needs led to desperate deeds.

Later, when he was able to see the bigger picture, he imagined that wild animals must feel the same kind of uncontrollable fear when they first inhaled the smoky air of a forest fire.

Every last grain of idealism would be sacrificed on the altar of safety.

Magic exists in the minds of those who believe in it, not in its actual influence on reality.

The events of the past days began to come back to him now, slow and fragmented, like pieces of driftwood washing ashore in the aftermath of a shipwreck.

People desperately resisted the idea of their own death by looking away for as long as they could and avoiding the subject.

A magia existe nas mentes daqueles que acreditam nela, não em sua verdadeira influência sobre a realidade.

What he doesn't realize is that his sanity is swaying like a tightrope walker over a dangerous sea of madness and his rationality is dissolving, just as an ominous thought emerges from beyond and moves stealthily through his mind: nibble, nibble like a mouse; tomorrow everyone will die.

Steve listened to the councilman's sermon in a state of hypnosis and again he felt the strange magnetism that the man exuded. Mathers was like a preacher of hellfire and brimstone who called down terror from the pulpit, and it had its effect: Steve realized he was afraid, just senselessly afraid.

This is all it takes for people to plunge into insanity: one night alone with themselves and what they fear the most.