Get it into your thick head that jokes are just like life. Things that begin badly, end badly. Everything's fine in the middle, it's the end you need… - László Krasznahorkai

The light gave him hope but he was afraid of it too.

He looked tired, exhausted even, but it was as if this were the specific thing that had exhausted him, not ordinary everyday matters but one single all-consuming care; it was obviously a fatigue born out of decades of vigilance, exhaustion owing to the knowledge that any moment he might be killed by that immeasurable weight of fat.

They’re waiting patiently, like the long-suffering lot they are, in the firm conviction that someone has conned them. They are waiting, belly to the ground, like cats at pig-killing time, hoping for scraps