“Death was so channeled and directed by this staircase, yet Sharpe had learned that the steps a man feared most were the ones that had to be taken. He climbed.”

— Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 168
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

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Bernard Cornwell 175

British writer 1944

Kingsley Amis book The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986)

“The fear was all he had left, but even that was something—he was afraid, so he must be alive! There was darkness, but there was Simon, too! There were not one and the same. Not yet. Not quite…”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 13, “Between Worlds” (p. 199).

“Sharpe knew himself to be a tough man, but he had always thought of himself as a reasonable one, yet now, in the mirror of William's nervousness, he saw himself as something far worse; a bullying man who would use the small authority of his rank to frighten men. In fact, the very kind of officer Sharpe had most hated when he himself was under their embittered authority.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 81
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

“Friends were anxious to learn if I had had a near-death experience, and if so, what effect it had had on my longstanding public atheism.”

Daniel Dennett (1942) American philosopher

Thank Goodness! (2006)
Context: Friends were anxious to learn if I had had a near-death experience, and if so, what effect it had had on my longstanding public atheism. Had I had an epiphany? Was I going to follow in the footsteps of Ayer (who recovered his aplomb and insisted a few days later "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief"), or was my atheism still intact and unchanged?
Yes, I did have an epiphany. I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now.