He was meaner, more irritable, more impatient for the ultimate power which could only be his through the elimination of all rivals; and if he had eve… - Mervyn Peake

The ritual which his body had had to perform for fifty years had been no preparation for the unexpected.

The lives of the Outer Dwellers had become almost normal again. Bitterness was their bread and rivalry their wine.

There is a kind of laughter that sickens the soul. Laughter when it is out of control: when it screams and stamps its feet, and sets the bells jangling in the next town. Laughter in all its ignorance and cruelty. Laughter with the seed of Satan in it. It tramples upon shrines; the belly-roarer. It roars, it yells, it is delirious: and yet it is as cold as ice. It has no humour. It is naked noise and naked malice.