"Irgendjemand muß Geist haben."

Signore Settembrini. Thomas Mann: Der Zauberberg.

"Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint!
Und das mit Recht, denn alles, was entsteht,
Ist wert, daß es zugrunde geht;
Drum besser wär's, daß nichts entstünde.
So ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde,
Zerstörung, kurz, das Böse nennt,
Mein eigentliches Element."

Mephisto. J.W. Goethe: Faust I, Studierzimmer (1).

"Männer mit Schnurrbärten sehen immer irgendwie traurig aus.
Frauen auch."

Lost in the Sauna. Florian Schiel 2009.

"Laß das Gespenst doch machen, was es will!"

Mephisto. J.W. Goethe: Faust II, Rittersaal

"Never touch a running SysOp!"

Bastard Ass(i) from Hell I. Florian Schiel 1997.

"Sometimes you need a bastard!"

Commander Samuel Vimes in Feet of Clay. Terry Prachett, 2000, HarperTorch, S. 84

Die einzige vernünftige Erklärung der Pyramiden:

"There is nothing mystical about the power of pyramids.
Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and orientated, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, in the same way that a hydraulic ram can be induced to pump water against the flow.
The original builders, who were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the whole point of a correctly-build pyramid was to achive absolute null time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would indeed live forever - or at least, never actually die. The time that should have passed in the chamber was stored in the bulk of the pyramid and allowed to flare off once every 24 hours.
After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the same effect by a) ritual b) pickling people and c) storing their soft inner bits in jars.
This seldom works."

Pyramids. Terry Prachett 1990, Corgi, S. 185.

"Having nothing feels liberating."

"Nerds tend to have cats, not dogs."

Douglas Coupland, 1994, Microserfs, S. 95, 97.

"Ich glaube nicht an die menschliche Vervollkommnungsfähigkeit. Ich meine nicht, dass menschliche Anstrengung irgend einen bestimmbaren Effekt für die Menschheit haben wird. Der Mensch ist heute nur aktiver geworden – aber nicht glücklicher."

Edgar Allan Poe, ?, ?, ?.