“Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me.”
Book II, Ch. 8 (Ch. 25 in editions without Book divisions): Dead London
The War of the Worlds (1898)
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H. G. Wells 142
English writer 1866–1946Related quotes
A Dream of Summer, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Surprised by Joy (1955)
As quoted in "Vertex Interviews Philip K. Dick" by Arthur Byron Cover, in Vertex, Vol. 1, no. 6 (February 1974) http://2010philipkdickfans.philipkdickfans.com/frank/vertexin.htm
Context: I started reading SF when I was about twelve and I read all I could, so any author who was writing about that time, I read. But there's no doubt who got me off originally and that was A. E. van Vogt. There was in van Vogt's writing a mysterious quality, and this was especially true in The World of Null A. All the parts of that book did not add up; all the ingredients did not make a coherency. Now some people are put off by that. They think that's sloppy and wrong, but the thing that fascinated me so much was that this resembled reality more than anybody else's writing inside or outside science fiction. … reality really is a mess, and yet it's exciting. The basic thing is, how frightened are you of chaos? And how happy are you with order? Van Vogt influenced me so much because he made me appreciate a mysterious chaotic quality in the universe which is not to be feared.
Source: Northern Farm
“If we sip the wine, we find dreams coming upon us out of the imminent night”
“There's always fear of the unknown where there's mystery.”
McKenna interview (1992)
Context: There's always fear of the unknown where there's mystery. It's possible to achieve a state where you realize the truth of life and fear disappears, and a lot of people have reached that state, but next to none of them are on Earth. There's probably a few.
Fragments
Variant: Zeus, the father of the Olympic Gods, turned mid-day into night, hiding the light of the dazzling Sun; and sore fear came upon men.
Context: Nothing can be surprising any more or impossible or miraculous, now that Zeus, father of the Olympians has made night out of noonday, hiding the bright sunlight, and... fear has come upon mankind. After this, men can believe anything, expect anything. Don't any of you be surprised in future if land beasts change places with dolphins and go to live in their salty pastures, and get to like the sounding waves of the sea more than the land, while the dolphins prefer the mountains.