There was an omnipresent sense of crisis. - Fritz Leiber

Pulg, alongside his pink streak of sentimentality, had recently taken to sporting a gray one of superstition.

“Dreams mean nothing,” he said coldly. “They are unreal.”
“They’re as real as anything else,” she shot back at him. “And they merely mean conscience.”

Their feeble attempts to appear concerned only made them look to him more like two fat cats full of stolen cream and with a map of the secret tunnel leading to the meat locker tucked inside their fur vests.