“Back at the beach, Doc collapsed on his couch and drifted toward sleep, but scarcely had he penetrated the surface tension and sunk into REM than the phone began a god-awful clanging. Last year a crazed teenage doper of Doc’s acquaintance had stolen a fire bell from his high school as part of a vandalism spree, and next morning the youth, overcome with remorse and having no idea what to do with the bell, came to Doc and offered it for sale. Downstairs Eddie, who had put in some time with the phone company and was handy with a soldering iron, had hooked the bell up to Doc’s phone. It had seemed like a groovy idea at the time, but very seldom after that.”

                     --Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice, 2009

“HANDS TREMBLING, BODY DRAINED AND SHAKING FROM THE REPEATED SHOCKS PUMMELING HIS HEART, TONY STARK SHOULD BE UNABLE TO MOVE–AND YET, MOVE HE DOES, DRIVEN BY INTERNAL FORCES OF WHICH ORDINARY MEN ARE ONLY AFFORDED A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME GLIMPSE–AND WHICH, EVEN THEN, THEY HARDLY RECOGNIZE–”

                     --Gerry Conway, IRON MAN, Vol. 1, No. 37, 
                             "In This Hour of Earthdoom!" 1971