Books—they weren't ladders out of the abyss, but they were companions.

— John Green

But first whom shall we sending search of this new world, whom shall we find Sufficient? Who shall tempt, with wand'ring feet The dark bottomed infinite abyss And through the palpable obscure find outhit uncouth way, or spread his aery flightUpborne with indefatigable wings Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive The happy isle?

— John Milton

Consider the suppleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide underwater, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.

— Herman Melville

Deal with all this, live with myself, you mean? I honestly don't know. I stand often enough at the abyss of my soul, asking that same question, looking down into the dark crevices where the black monsters dwell on the bottom. They gaze up at me, and I look them in the eyes. “This also you are,” they say, and I almost fall into the void.”“And then?” Anaxantis shrugged.“And then? I turn around and go do what needs to be done. What else is there?

— Andrew Ashling

[death]...the abyss from where no traveler is permitted to return

— George Washington

Death was a leech; no matter which side of the spectrum you were on, either dead or alive, it fed. It either acquired your soul or devoured all your joyful emotions.

— Laura Kreitzer

Every puff was like sucking in the abyss, yet he inhaled until his lungs filled with toxic smoke that clouded his thoughts of her.

— Ahmed Mostafa

For we all have our own twilight and mist sand abysses to return to.

— Sanober Khan

I believe that theology is facing the abyss. I must face the abyss, the abyss of existence, the abyss of mystery. (Ruben Alves, p. 189)

— Mev Puleo

If ever again we happened to lose our balance, just when sleepwalking through the same dream on the brink of hell’s valley, if ever the magical mare (whom I ride through the night air hollowed out into caverns and caves where wild animals live) in a crazy fit of anger over some word I might have said without the perfect sweetness that works on her like a charm, if ever the magic Mare looks over her shoulder and whinnies: “So! You don’t love me!” and bucks me off, sends me flying to the hyenas, if ever the paper ladder that I climb so easily to go pick stars for Promethean—at the very instant that I reach out my hand, and it smells like fresh new moon, so good, it makes you believe in god’s genius—if ever at that very instant my ladder catches fire—because it is so fragile, all it would take is someone’s brushing against it tactlessly and all that would be left is ashes—if ever I had the dreadful luck again to find myself falling screaming down into the cruel guts of separation, and emptying all my being of hope, down to the last milligram of hope, until I am able to melt into the pure blackness of the abyss and be no more than night and a death rattle, I would really rather not be tumbling around without my pencil and paper.

— Hélène Cixous