Terror and pleasure are linked in us. We are a baldly miswired species, Martie. Terror delights us, both the experience of terror and the dealing out of it to others. We are healthier if we admit to this miswiring and do not struggle to be better than our natures allow.

Anyone who learns the true and hidden nature of the world will be terrified, Oddie, but there's a safe harbor past the terror.

I am the One, and I see all.
But the blind man in Apartment 1-A is blind in many ways, as are all human beings, even those with functioning eyes. They are blind to their folly, to their ignorance, to their history, to the future that they will make for themselves. A future born of self-loathing.

Too much mystery is merely an annoyance. Too much adventure is exhausting. And a little terror goes a long way.

...hope and trust will more reliably keep a man afloat, while fear is more like to sink him.

Hell of a thing to have to experience, hell of a thing to have to see, to be reminded you're a human being and all it meant to be one.