p.14 after all, we should remember who created them: not the gods, nor echidna, but man. Above all else, this book is a testament to humankind’s incredible fevered indestructible imagination.
(fallibility/fragility of man!)
p.47 (on Bosch) even today, in the wake of surrealism and all that modern art has thrown at us, his images are shocking.
p.62 god creates perfect life forms; man can create only flawed monsters.
p.129 most monsters are hybrids, but many of the most chilling combine a human body with the head of an animal... these images are unsettling precisely because we know that inside the animal head is the brain of a human. we find the combination of animal savagery with the cunning and malice of a human mind particularly terrifying.
p.142 (on ghouls) ..in 1848 Edgar Allen pie included them in his poem ‘the bells’: ‘they are neither man nor woman / they are neither brute nor human / they are Ghouls
p. 148 Nyx, the primordial goddess of the night, was born of chaos, and her children included Thanatos (death) nemesis (retribution) hypos (sleep) and charon (who ferries the dead to hades) Dreams have long been interpreted as a portal to a greater reality... connection between dreams night and monsters has always been strong. for this reason, monsters are often depicted in a dreamlike context. ...perhaps the most astute comment on the dangers of falling prey to fear, however, comes from the Spanish artist francisco Goya. In his print ‘the sleep of reason breeds monsters’..
p. 150-1 Utagawa Kuniyoshi , skeleton - Pom Poko
p. 174 whoever fights monsters should take care not to become one, warned the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. ... ‘natural enemy of the monster is the hero ...
