“Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
…
“But somehow the things drift back again: the stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again.”
– The Island of Doctor Moreau, H. G. Wells
But for gnomic quality, nothing beats:
“Apology accepted.”
“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
– Lady Macbeth (Act V, Scene 1)
There’s an urban legend that Alfred Hitchcock liked to say this to his companion just before they stepped off a crowded elevator.
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” - HAL
mm
“They will come on you in the wild, in some dark place where there is no help. Do you wish them to find you? They are terrible!”
I should’ve figured that I read it here. Thanks, Shodan.
“I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.”
Mary Shelly -* Frankenstein*
He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.
“The monkey’s paw!” she cried, wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”
He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?”
She came stumbling across the room towards him. “I want it,” she said, quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”
“It’s in the parlor, on the bracket,” he replied, marvelling. “Why?”
She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.
“I only just thought of it,” she said, hysterically. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Why didn’t you think of it?”
“Think of what?” he questioned.
“The other two wishes,” she replied, rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”
“Was not that enough?” he demanded, fiercely.
“No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”
Her world collapsed early Sunday morning.
She got up from the kitchen table, folded the newspaper, and silenced the radio.
Those creatures jumped the barricades, and have headed for the sea…
– R.E.M., “Belong”
I’ve always thought those opening lines sounded so ominous and apocalyptic. They make me think of how it would feel to realize that real, physical doom is imminent and inescapable, and how at such a time the accepting of your fate could be terrifying and somehow liberating at the same time.
“…And then I discovered that they were the kind of matches that only strike on the box.” -The Time Machine
The birds sang, the proles sang. The Party did not sing. All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan – everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing. Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.
‘We are the dead,’ he said.
‘We are the dead,’ echoed Julia dutifully.
’You are the dead,’ said an iron voice behind them.
–Orwell, 1984
“It’s too late. We can’t win, they’ve gotten too powerful.”
—suicide note of Abbie Hoffman
Actually, that one always cheers me up. >:D
Illuminatus:
“It was the year they finally immanentized the Eschaton.”
(Ominous only if you know the words, of course.)
Regards,
Shodan
“Don’t get on the ship. The book, To Serve Man, IT’S A COOKBOOK!” - The Twilight Zone
Foundation by Isaac Asimov:
"If you ask me, the galaxy is going to pot!"
OK, maybe that’s more ludicrous than ominous. 
Ya ain’t gonna beat Poe for an ominous quote. From Masque of the Red Death:
“And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”
They’re waiting to be murdered,
Or evicted. Soon
They expect to have nothing to eat.
In the meantime, they sit.
From The Old Couple by Charles Simic
He was teaching at my university while I was a student, but I never had him. Others described him as someone “angry he has to teach” and “a conceited jerk” so I wasn’t saddened not to.
“Pleased to meet you - hope you’ve guessed my name.”
“Where do you think you’re going?
don’t you know it’s dark outside?
Where do you think you’re going?
Don’t you care about my pride?
I’m sick of joking.
You know I want you to be free, now
But where do you think you’re going?
I think you’d better
go with me…” --Dire Straits
“Do you reckon me a friend?
Are you beckoning me in?” – Nick Cave
“Your sorry is not good enough.” – Radiohead
Men in Black:
BUG-EYED MONSTER: Give me your weapon!
REDNECK: You can have my gun when you pry my cold, dead fingers off it!
BEM: Your offer is acceptable.