The Name of the Rose
Perhaps The Name of the Rose will fit in here somehow. It's certainly got a whole range of juicy bits:
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [...] But we see now through a glass darkly."
"Repeating verbatim [...] without venturing to seek a design. [...] May the Lord grant me the grace to be the transparent witness."
"As Boethius says, nothing is more fleeting than external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn."
"Machines are an effect of art [...] and they reproduce not its forms but the operation itself."
"But resume your course, O my story, for this aging monk is lingering too long over marginalia."
