William Gaddis, writing about Christmas in The Recognitions:

“Tragedy was foresworn in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of that which the heart dare not surrender.”

David Foster Wallace, writing about a life in “Incarnations of Burned Children”:

“…and the child’s body expanded and walked about and drew pay and lived its life untenanted, a thing among things, its self’s soul so much vapor aloft, falling as rain and then rising, the sun up and down like a yoyo.”

William T. Vollmann, writing about skinheads in The Rainbow Stories:

“Whether it is a happy life or a sad one the Skinz live is of course unknowable to anyone watching them stride by, turning their bulging skulls greedily upon their bulging necks, trying to be pitiless, exclusive; not listening much to one another; but we can consider the question. The lone ones lean up against the restaurant windows, hunching their heads in like turtles at the same time they swivel their gaze in what might be anxiety or might be automatic street wisdom. They spend too much time waiting, but on the whole they are arguably happy, having their fights to look forward to. What more, after all, could anyone yearn for in his guts than the chance to hurt somebody else, jawkicking a soul into screaming subhumanness in order to reiterate that I live? — ‘Politics,’ I once heard a conservative say, ‘is the exercise of power. Power is the ability to inflict pain.’ By this criterion the skinheads are among our most spontaneous politicians. Let us assume, then, that being spontaneous they are light of heart.”

Cormac McCarthy, writing about the aftermath of slaughter in Blood Meridean:

“With darkness one soul rose wondrously from among the new slain dead and stole away in the moonlight. The ground where he’d lain was soaked with blood and with urine from the voided bladders of the animals and he went forth stained and stinking like some reeking issue of the incarnate dam of war herself.”

Charles Bukowski, writing about a woman in Factotum:

“She had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that was killing her. She reminded me of a butterfat little piglet.”