Alan Wake

"Stephen King once wrote that “Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there’s little fun to be had in explanations; they’re antithetical to the poetry of fear.” In a horror story, the victim keeps asking "Why?" But there can be no explanation, and there shouldn’t be one. The unanswered mystery is what stays with us the longest, and it’s what we’ll remember in the end. My name is Alan Wake. I’m a writer."

"I’ve always had a vivid imagination, but this dream unsettled me. It was wild and dark and weird, even by my standards. So yes - it began with a dream. Following a typical nightmare pattern, I was late, desperately trying to reach my destination – a lighthouse – for some urgent reason I couldn’t remember. I’d been driving too fast down a coastal road to get there. ... I’d seen the hitchhiker too late. ... He was dead. I was convinced they’d put me in jail, and I would never see Alice again. ... Suddenly, his body was gone."

"It's not a lake; it's an ocean."

"I could feel Alice's presence close by... I understood what I had to do now. I knew how to write the ending to Departure. There's light, and there's darkness. Cause and effect. There's guilt and there's atonement. But the scales always need to balance. Everything has a price. That's where Zane had gone wrong. There's a long journey through the night back into the light."

"A story is not a machine that does what you tell it. A story is a beast with a life of its own. You can create it, shape it, but as the story grows, it starts wanting things on its own. Change one thing, and you set off a chain reaction of events that spreads through the whole thing. The characters have to be true to themselves. The events need to follow a logic that fits the story. A single flaw and the magic is gone. The story dies. Alice dies."

"Alan, wake up."

"I have something important to tell you. It goes like this; For he did not know, that beyond the lake he called home, there lied a deeper, and darker ocean green. Where waves are both wilder and more serene. To its ports I've been, to its ports I've been."

"Follow my light."

"I entered your dream to teach you. The darkness is dangerous. It’s sleeping now. When it feels you coming, it will wake up. There’s no time, I can only show you the most important thing. The hitchhiker had been taken over by the Dark Presence. You can’t hurt him now. The darkness protects him from all harm. Only light can drive the darkness away and make him vulnerable again."

"Beyond the shadow you settled for, there's a miracle illuminated."

"You will never get her back."

"Enough. You will go no further."

"Stop. Stop now."

"Al, this may be the most awesome moment of our entire lives!"

"See this headlamp? It's like a superpower! I can just look at one of those things and they die! It's my flaming eye of Mordor!"

"I swear this is the slowest elevator in the world!"

"It's great that you first make yourself an imaginary friend, and then you can't even get along with that guy. People skills, Al! You're a master!"

"I have several lawyers on speed dial just because I never know when you'll get in trouble again! You know what kind of people need that? Gangsters and assholes! And you're NOT a gangster, because they make money all the time!"