Excerpt from Something Wicked This Way Comes:
“Well, what have you there?” Mr. Dark squinted. “A Bible? How Very Charming, how childish and refreshingly old-fashioned.”
“Have you ever read it, Mr. Dark?”
“Read it! I’ve had every page, paragraph, and word read at me, sir!” Mr. Dark took time to light a cigarette and blow smoke toward the NO SMOKING sign, then at Will’s father. “Do you really imagine that books can harm me? Is Naiveté really your armor? Here!”
And before Charles Halloway could move, Mr. Dark ran lightly forward and took the Bible. He held it in his two hands.
“Aren’t you surprised? See, I touch, hold, even read from it.”
Mr. Dark blew smoke on the pages as he riffled them.
“Do you expect me to fall away into so many Dead Sea scrolls of flesh before you? Myths, unfortunately, are just that. Life, and by life I could mean so many fascinating things, goes on, makes shift for itself, survives wildly, and I not the least wild among many. Your King James and his literary version of some rather stuffy poetic materials is worth about this much of my time and sweat.”
Mr. Dark hurled the Bible into a wastepaper basket and did not look at it again.