“Farid had brought an invisible guest with him.
Fear.”

“I knew that there had been times in the past-terrible times-when people had destroyed others in haste, in fear, and had brought about their own destruction”

“For a guest remembers all his days the hospitable man who showed him kindness.”

“Not naive," Conch Shell had corrected him, "He simply has not been taught to fear the things you fear.”

“And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.”

“Do you know how pale & wanton thrillful
comes death on a strange hour
unannounced, unplanned for
like a scaring over-friendly guest you've
brought to bed
Death makes angels of us all
& gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws”

“I had forgotten to fear him, from too much time spent too close.”

“He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution.”

“He had lived a very long time, and only since he gained Anna had he learned to fear. He’d discovered that he had never been brave before—just indifferent. She had taught him that to be brave, you have to fear losing something.”

“The veneration of mighty invisible beings, which was extorted from helpless man through natural fear rooted in the sense of his impotence …”