It's like the book of Revelations, but funnier. It's like the Last Trumpet, but hopelessly out of tune. It's like the perennial battle between good and evil but no one can quite work out which is which anymore, and most people don't even know what perennial means.
Opening lines of ENIGMA #3: "The Good Boy"
The Truth has entered the church. He broke in a few hours ago and gave a sermon on the kind of truths you won't find in any book. Good, bad, or indifferent. Thirty-five believers, ten agnostics and two closet Satanists kicked the Eucharist.
The Truth strikes again, in ENIGMA #3: "The Good Boy"
But look at these others. The Enigmatics, they call themselves. Did these apes lose most of their brains when they lost most of their hair? They can't wait to leave their parents, then once they've left them, can't wait to find new and bigger parents to obey.
The Enigma spawns a cult, in ENIGMA #3: "The Good Boy"
My own characters have come to life to get me, I thought. I should have been nicer to them.
Titus Bird, in ENIGMA #3: "The Good Boy"
Dad died in the last big earthquake to hit Pacific. It was like, after that, Mom was scared of anything chaotic in our lives. Like everything was on the edge of collapsing, getting sucked into an earthquake of chaos.
Michael talks about his parents, in ENIGMA #3: "The Good Boy"
"Someone, I think John Cage, said that life without order was chaos, but order without life was death."
"Who's John Cage?"
"It doesn't matter."
Titus and Michael, in ENIGMA #3: "The Good Boy"
Hey, Michael, you really don't want to go in there. No, really you don't. The Truth hurts, you know...
Closing lines of ENIGMA #3: "The Good Boy"
"Are you ready for me? Are you ready for my indifference? For my abysmal disinterest? Are you ready to have the lies and conceits of your life peeled away like so many layers of skin? Are you ready for the truth?"
"Ahhh... No, I... I don't really think I am..."
The Truth and Michael Smith, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Too bad. The truth is a rude guest. The truth doesn't knock on the door and wait to be asked in.
The Truth, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Look into my eyes. You will see the dull horror of your childhood and we will begin to dissect this pointless obsession of yours.
The Truth, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
When he opens his eyes he finds himself in a nightmare world surrounded by nightmare creatures with grotesque ovoid heads and wildly flapping limbs. Michael tells the policemen he remembers nothing.
Aftermath, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Exactly the Truth is being carted out, to the cheers of the crowd, who obviously fail to see the irony of the Truth dying in a church. Actually, I fail to see the irony in that too, but who cares what I think? I mean, do I really care what you think? Who are you anyway? I mean, are you following any of this?
The narrator gets tetchy, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Someone has broken into his house and completely rearranged the furniture. And as he looks at the room, now so grotesquely unfamiliar, it's as though something breaks into John's head, and completely rearranges the furniture there.
John Cade's doom, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
"TV and papers are full of it. They creep into homes and rearrange the furniture."
"My God! The monsters!"
Titus and Michael discuss the Interior League, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
It seems they rearrange the furniture in such a way that somehow, God knows how, it drives at least one member of the household crazy. Like the furniture arranged in this pattern is a key that unlocks the mind...
Titus explains the Interior League, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Like so many others who have abandoned jobs, families, commitments; who chucked in the whole caboodle, torn up their past lives and all they'd thought important to seek out Envelope Girl. All captivated by her strong manila arms, her lovely gumminess, the heady allure of her zip code.
An aging judge's description, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Returned to his place, he sits quite still, pretending he doesn't exist, which is a harder game than you might imagine.
The Enigma kills yet more time, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Oh great. Charlie Manson is on my side. Things are really looking up.
Titus Bird, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
You know what impresses me about you? Your ability to be as pathetic as you are and not want to kill yourself. If I were you, I'd have to kill myself.
The Enigma talks to the rich cat, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
What does it mean, huh? What does it mean when those kids die so... pointlessly? It doesn't mean anything, does it? That's the scary part. If it meant something, you could handle it, but it doesn't.
Titus Bird, in ENIGMA #4: "And Then What?"
Look, they're carrying the corpses away, ho hum.
Opening line of ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
Do I sound detached? Indifferent? I'm not, believe me. I'll tell you a secret: I'm not a distant narrator, aloof from the action of this story... I'm a part of this story.
The narrator drops a hint, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
It's the following day and two more houses have been redecorated by the Interior League. Five people dead.
Events continue to flow, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
But somehow lizards are connected to all this. They're a constant theme.
Michael Smith, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
What are we doing in this suburban living room? And look at that furniture, for God's sake!
The narrator comments on decor, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
The eyes burn with all the wet violence of the young and all the dry malevolence of the old. ... This creature will play a big part in our story, you wait.
Foreshadowing, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
Molesters and foul abusers of comfy chairs and imitation Edwardian sideboards, deflowerers of teak coffee tables and meek landscape paintings and ...
The Interior League described, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
This of course is nothing like the comic book Enigma. This is real life, or as real as your life gets, anyway.
Violence, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
Of course I'm here. I've always been here, there, and everywhere.
Envelope Girl sounds rather Kosh-like, in ENIGMA #5: "Lizards and Ghosts"
My mother laid flowers on the ground above here. Seagulls flew off with them, before the crappy little makeshift service was even finished. Everything was against us. My poor old dad. The ground swallowed him and then the sky stole his flowers. Poor old dad.
Michael Smith in the tomb, in ENIGMA #6: "The End of The World"
I lost my Enigma comics too. They were buried with him and I used to imagine him like an Egyptian pharaoh, buried with what he needed for the afterlife, reading The Enigma for all eternity.
Michael Smith, in ENIGMA #6: "The End of The World"
"I'm whoever you want me to be."
"No, sorry. That's the kind of tacky, bogus line that Titus used to come up with. It works okay on the page but just doesn't sound real when it's spoken."
The Enigma and Michael, in ENIGMA #6: "The End of The World"
People move in and out of other people's lives, and no one ever knows exactly what other people are thinking. In this way we are all alone. But I am more alone than most.
The narrator, in ENIGMA #7: "Sex in Arizona"
He had a charming lightness of touch as he transfixed the young doctor, neatly stripped him, and prepared to devour him, smelly toes first. Of course they hadn't told him that he wasn't allowed to eat the doctors: they'd just arrogantly presumed he wouldn't.
Opening lines of ENIGMA #8: "Queer"
I think we should just be silent for one moment here, and contemplate this waste of reptilian life. Excuse me, are you still there? I haven't lost you yet, have I?
The narrator is uncharacteristically moved, in ENIGMA #8: "Queer"
It's my belief that if you cut into a thing deeply enough; if your incisions are precise and persistent and conducted methodically, then you may reveal not only that thing's inner workings, but also the meaning behind those workings. This conviction was shared by the historical personage whose life is central to From Hell, although perhaps his beliefs were expressed in a somewhat broader sense than my own. For my part, the thing that I am concerned with cutting into and examining is the stillwarm corpse of history itself. In my chilliest moments, I sometimes suspect that this was his foremost preoccupation also, albeit in pursuit of different ends.
In the Appendix of From Hell:The Compleat Scripts
This book is dedicated to Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Kate Eddowes, and Marie Jeanette Kelly. You and your demise: of these things alone are we certain. Goodnight, ladies.
Dedication in the TPB of FROM HELL
"The working class don't want a revolution, Mr Lees: they just want more money."
Abberline, in the prologue to FROM HELL
"Don't you ever feel guilty? We could have said something. We could have done something. Why, Fred? Why did we just let them bury it?"
"Because we didn't want our throats cut. Because we didn't want our lights hung over our shoulders."
Lees and Abberline, in the prologue to FROM HELL
"Well, if I may not work the ocean I should like to work with something of a kind to it... something that flows like the ocean... something salt and old."
Gull, as a child, in FROM HELL #2
"Though concerning the objects of your pity I fear there's little hope."
"There must be... even for such unfortunates. Is not all base matter gradually ascending; refining itself into pure spirit?"
"Assuredly... but some wretches have a downward momentum in their lives almost impossible to reverse."
Gull and Hinton, in FROM HELL #2
"Consider it: water will of necessity flow downhill, thwarting all our best efforts that it should do otherwise. In order that water might rise despite itself it must first be transmuted into steam. It must first be touched by the purifying spirit of fire."
Gull, in FROM HELL #2
"Dorset Street -- the most evil in London, I'm told."
Hinton, in FROM HELL #2
"Such minds, Hinton, shaping infinity itself."
Gull, in FROM HELL #2
"Fourth dimensional patterns within Eternity's monolith would, he suggests, seem merely random events to third-dimensional percipients."
Hinton, in FROM HELL #2
"Let us say something peculiar happens in 1788... a century later, related events take place. Then again, 50 years later. Then 25 years. Then 12. An invisible curve, rising through the centuries."
Hinton, in FROM HELL #2