I would characterise the mood, here in town, as that of a child who isn't in trouble yet, but knows he's going to be. He's up in his room, waiting, "Just wait till your father gets home." He's sullen and snappish, he's on edge. Confused, sad, trembling against the knowledge of what's coming next, and right on the edge of violence, not angry but anxious in a way that can easily shade into anger.

"It was a street filled with the sights and sounds of forgotten memories, thought the man who had no memory to forget."

"Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl."

"All I have left is the space in my mind where you used to be... and I'm not so certain about even that."

"To look at the landscape you might think not that the world has undergone devastation, but rather that it has been put on hold in the middle of construction, that, in fact, the Builder's holy hand has been halted temporarily, that the skeletal structures speak of promise and hope and ingenuity rather than of wreck and ruin."

"God is a slick god, Temple knows. She knows because of all the crackerjack miracles still to be seen on this ruined globe."

"The steam moved sinuously, as if it were hiding shapes within its cloudy mass. At last Lana was able to move away, and she walked to the window and opened it, letting in the cool night air. The steam shifted, breaking apart like a hacked sheet. There was no monster hid within the folds of dissipating steam. Nobody was in the bathroom apart from the two women, mother and daughter, and the unmistakable presence of their shared fear."

"Nicky, seven murders in one night is one for the record books - but only until some industrious soul takes it up to eight. It's like every other summer is the hottest summer on record."

"That's just because of global warming."

"Right. And this is because of global rabies."

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

Read on for the quote...

"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."

"Ghost town was too fanciful a term for Columbus, conjuring up visions of porch swings creaking in the breeze and tattered vintage Coke signs flapping. This place was a zombie, rotting before my eyes, dead but still somehow functioning."

"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt..."

“Upon her arrival, you could still see the bite marks of snow on her hands and the frosty blood on her fingers. Everything about her was undernourished. Wirelike shins. Coat hanger arms. She did not produce it easily, but when it came, she had a starving smile.”

"On more than one occasion David, in his urge to explore the darker corners of the bookshelves, had found himself wearing strands of spider silk in his face and hair, causing the web's creator to scuttle into a corner and crouch balefully, lost in thoughts of arachnoid revenge."