173
" It is a strange moment when one realises that one’s life is now measured in minutes, and that whatever great plans might have been laid are now all moot and pointless and – in the great burning clarity of the instant – trivial. Cabal did not know what the others were thinking of, neither did he care. All he knew was that the course of his life had long been nothing more than a list of calculated risks, and that, finally, his luck had run out. All the work, all the hardships, all the sacrifices – both personal and of livestock – had been for naught; his work would never see fruition. He would never see her again. But that was not his fault, and he regretted nothing. "
― Jonathan L. Howard , The Fear Institute (Johannes Cabal, #3)
177
" There were rules, laws, principles that governed everything, rules, laws, and principles that controlled every falling raindrop, every whirl of an electron, every frolicking ghost. These laws he understood better than most, and those laws said this place could not be. A pocket universe containing material aspects of the mundane, mortal world was one thing, but it was the presence of an artefact of the Dreamlands in the same place that put it all awry. It was tantamount to an electrical cell having two positives, or a planet failing to generate any gravitational pull; it simply could not happen.
There were, then, principles to which he was not privy, and to which he had never guessed at, and which he did not begin even to understand how he might understand. Not only had he built his house of science upon shifting sands, so had everybody else.
Yes, he was frightened. "
― Jonathan L. Howard , The Fall of the House of Cabal (Johannes Cabal, #5)