A miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

<i>Now that,</i> said the monster, <i>is how destruction is properly done.</i>

I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.

It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.

I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust.

My wretched dragon is perplexed.

Of all the stars the most beautiful
Is nothing more than a monster,
Just as starved & stranded as we are.

"It's dreadful, isn't it?"
"What? Death?"
"Yes. It makes everything else seem so horribly trivial. He doesn't look human. When you look at him you can hardly persuade yourself that he's ever been alive. It's hard to think that not so very many years ago he was just a little boy tearing down the hill and flying a kite."

The carnage was unbelievable.

To me all palaces are preposterous, a tasteless, dreary expression of ostentation.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

Look, it's a monster. He's walking alone. Look, he's pulling something out of his pocket. He threw it on the ground. Let's go see what it is. It's a black box. You open it... ok... Look, it's sorrow, misery and pain. It's loneliness and longing. Boy, he'll be sorry he lost these.

The monstrosity of this, reaching Smiley through a thickening wall of spiritual exhaustion, left him momentarily speechless.