12: Roger Zelazny Quote of the Day: I've got to know if there's something inside me that sets me apart from a rabbit

     It had made a noise like God playing a Hammond organ...

     And looked at me!

     I  don't  know if seeing is even the same process in eyes like those. I doubt it. Maybe I was just a  gray  blur  behind  a  black  rock,  with  the plexi-reflected  sky hurting  its  pupils.  But it fixed on me. Perhaps the snake doesn't really paralyze the rabbit, perhaps it's just that rabbits are cowards by constitution. But it began to struggle and I still couldn't move, fascinated.

     Fascinated by all that power,  by  those  eyes,  they found me there fifteen  minutes  later,  a  little broken about the head and shoulders, the Inject still unpushed.

     And I dream about those eyes. I want to face them once  more,  even if their finding takes forever. I've got to know if there's something inside me that  sets me apart  from a rabbit,  from notched plates of reflexes and instincts that always fall apart in exactly the same way whenever the proper combination is spun.

The Context: Carlton Davits is on Venus as part of an expedition to capture a Icthysaurus elasmognathus, “Ikky”.  That passage is from an encounter that occurred before the events of the story. Davits found himself transfixed by the stare of the creature, and his failure to tranquilize it led to the failure of his mission and his personal ruin.

Why I like it: I do love a good story of redemption, and that's what appeals to me about the story, but I do dearly love the elegance of that quote, in particular, the bolded part.