" He sat relaxed, one knee up, arms folded, face clear one moment in a flash of flame and pale the next. He was soiled all over, and seemed rather limp and in a strange misery of ease. His expression was neither bitter nor sarcastic, only thoughtful-fixed with an enduring expression just as the faces on the mosaics were fixed as they bore lifeless witness to the same events. "

― Anne Rice , Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles, #5)