
“When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.”
Variant: When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
“When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.”
Variant: When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Variant: Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
"Honoria" (1957); republished in The New American, Vol. 19, No. 20, (6 October 2003)
1950s
“And when the abyss looks into you - and it will - may you look back unflinching.”
Source: Challenger Deep
“Maybe that's what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.”
Letter to Alan Harrington (23 April 1949) published in Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1 1940-1956 (1996)
Source: Selected Letters, 1940-1956
“Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Know what I mean?”
“This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.”
"A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" (1922)