“He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

Source: Clockwork Prince

Source: The Road

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 3

Variant: There is a classic moment in ‘The Sun Also Rises’ when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, “Gradually and then suddenly.” When someone asks how I lost my mind, that’s all I can say too.
Source: Prozac Nation

In Question Time, 29 November 2012

Coal Black Horse (2007)

The Fountainhead (1943).
Source: Atlas Shrugged
Context: That particular sense of sacred rapture men say they experience in contemplating nature- I've never received it from nature, only from. Buildings, Skyscrapers. I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pest-hole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.

Bk. III, Ch. 6.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)