Anne Rice

“Don't you see? It is a new age. It requires a new evil. And I am that new evil.”

“We half to make our lives meaningful in spite of what we don't know.”

“It's always been pride. The History of the Mayfair Witches was pride. But this came to me wrapped in the mysteries of science. We have such a terrible, terrible misconception of science. We think it involves the definite, the precise, the known; it is a horrid series of gates to an unknown as vast as the universe; which means endless. And I knew this, I knew but I forgot. That was my mistake.”

“Put out the light and then put out the light.”

“She was gone then in a flurry of bonnet ribbons and clicking slippers. I turned, paying no attention to where I went, wishing the city would swallow me, conscious now of the hunger rising to overtake reason. I was almost loath to put an end to it. I needed to let the lust, the excitement blot out all consciousness, and I thought of the kill over and over and over, walking slowly up this street and down the next, moving inexorably towards it, saying, It's a string which is pulling me through the labyrinth.”

“But death we are, and death we've always been.”

“Drink." she whispered, drawing nearer. "Drink." she held the soft, tender flesh of the wrist towards me. "No. I know what to do; haven't I done it in the past?" I said to her.”

“No había día del juicio, no había una explicación final, no había ningún momento luminoso en el cual todos los terribles errores cometidos fueran corregidos y todos los horrores fueran compensados.Las brujas quemadas en la hoguera no serían vengadas jamás.¡Nadie iba a decirnos nunca nada!”

“In his refusal to believe in anything supernatural or inherently evil, he was as unrealistic as an old voodoo queen who sees spirits everywhere.”

“I am such a bad girl," she thought. Yet...”

“But you're dead inside to me, you're cold and beyond my reach! It is as if I'm not here, beside you. And, not being here with you, I have the dreadful feeling that I don't exist at all. And you are as cold and distant from me as those strange modern paintings of lines and hard forms that I cannot love or comprehend, as alien as those hard mechanical sculptures of this age which have no human form. I shudder when I'm near you. I look into your eyes and my reflection isn't there . . . .”

“I don't need to sleep to play. I'm crazy anyway. Being crazier still could only help.”

“There comes a time when a house owns you and you know you have to get free of it, and go on with the rest of your life.”

“Domenico appeared to lie against the door, and in the shadowy dark, his face was luminous and delicate. When he smiled the hollows of his cheeks deepened, the light played more beautifully on the bones, and when he spoke, it was that of a woman's voice again, husky and stroking."Don't be afraid if him." he whispered.Tonio realized he had taken a step backwards. His heart was making a tumult inside of him."Afraid of whom?" he asked. "Lorenzo, of course," said the roughened velvet voice. "I won't let him do anything to do.""Don't come any closer!" Tonio said sharply. Again he took a step backwards,But Domenico only smiled, his head falling a little to the left so that the white powdered curls spilled over his shoulder onto that flaring breast. "You mean I am the one you're afraid of?" Tonio looked away in confusion. "I have to leave here," he said. Domenico let out a long beguiling breath. And then suddenly he put his arms around Tonio; he pressed the soft ruffles of his breast against Tonio. Tonio stumbled back and found himself against the mirror, the candles flickering on either side of him. He reached back for the glass, his hands down, to get his balance. "You are afraid of me," Domenico whispered. "I don't know what you want!" Tonio said. "Ah, but I know what you want. Why are you afraid to take it?"Tonio was going to shake his head but he stopped, staring into Domenico's eyes. It was inconceivable that anything of a man existed under this froth, this magic. And when he saw the lips moist and parting and drawing near to him, he shut his eyes, straining away. Surely he could knock this creature to the floor with one blow, and yet he was shrinking back as if he might be burned here!”

“Desire radiated from him. It radiated out into the darkness and seemed to find the four walls of this enclosing place, and he turned around waiting, waiting."Love you?" came Guido's voice. It was so low Tonio strained forward, as if yearning for it. "Love you?"Yes..."Tonio answered."I am in a hell of desire for you! Have you never guessed? Have you never looked beneath the coldness? Are you so blind to this suffering? In all my life I have never wooed and suffered as I have over you. But there is love and love, and I am spent trying to separate the one from the other...""Dont' separate them!" Tonio whispered. And he reached out like a child, grasping for what he wanted. "Give it to me! Where are you? Maestro, where are you?"There seemed a rush of air, a soft shuffling of garments and steps, and he felt the near smarting touch of Guido's hands hands that in the past had only struck him, and then those arms enclosing him. And in this moment, he understood everything. But that was but the last glimmer of thought, and he knew just how it had been and how it would be, and he felt Guido's chest, and then Guido's mouth tore at him.”

“I love you,' Marius whispered suddenly, passionately as a mortal man might. 'I have always loved you. I wish that I could believe in anything other than love at this moment; but I can’t.”

“I wouldn't write a book to tell you that a vampire was happy.”

“I like to read things I've read before. It's like listening over and over to your favorite song.”

“His breathing was heavy and he was somber. He shivered still, and when his hand found me it was unsteady."Ah," I said smiling still, and kissing his shoulder."I hurt you!" he said."No, no, not at all, sweet Master," I answered. "But I hurt you! I have you, now!""Amadeo, you play with the devil.""Dont you want me to, Master? Didn't you like it? You took my blood and it made you my slave!"He laughed. "So that's the twist you put on it, isn't it?""Hmmm. Love me. What does it matter?" I asked."Never tell the others," he said. There was no fear or weakness or shame in it.”

“They said a child had died in the attic. Her clothes had been discovered in the wall.I wanted to go up there, and to lie down near the wall, and be alone.They'd seen her ghost now and then, the child. But none of these vampires could see spirits, really, at least not the way that I could see them. No matter. It wasn't the company of the child I wanted. It was to be in that place.”

“I saw the great sparkling orbs of his eyes, the tiny red veins that reached for the dark centers, that warm hand burning my cold hunger as he guided me to a chair. And then all around me I saw faces blazing, faces rising in the smoke of the lamps, in the shimmer of the burning stove, a wonderland of colors on canvases surrounding us beneath the small, sloped roof, a blaze of beauty that pulsed and throbbed.”

“Oh, but when love is reached through suffering, it has a power it can never gain through innocence.”

“And time would open up to us and we would be the teachers of one another. All the things that gave you happiness would give me happiness; and I would be the protector of your pain. My power would be your power. My strength the same. But you're dead inside to me, you're cold and beyond reach!”

“It struck me, sharp and hard, that I had been given so many chances to save my soul that my entire life had been constructed around these chances! That was my nature - going from temptation to temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.”

“Love me. You have destroyed everything! But if you love me, it can all be restored in a new form. Love me.”

“He bent close to me, and suddenly kissed me, in a manner that seemed entirely childlike and also a bit European.”

“I was too miserable to take much consolation just from feeling good for a moment in a welter of shudders and salted, bloodstained tears.”

“I tucked my arm under my head and started crying like a child. I was perishing from exhaustion. I was worn and miserable and I loved crying. I couldn’t do anything else. I gave in to it fully. I felt that profound release of the utterly grief-stricken. I didn’t give a damn who saw or heard. I cried and cried.”

“Go where the pain is, go where the pleasure is.”

“He was so rapt in his thoughts that he did not hear anything much that Guido was saying, that lovely bubbling speech of Guido's when he was at last content.Tonio allowed it to pass over him, and now and then he would give a little gracious nod.”

“The Cardinal was bent over his writing desk, the room unchanged save for the light of what appeared a small antique oil lamp. And there were illuminated letters in the book before him, tiny figures fitted into the capitals, the whole gleaming as he let his hand, quivering, turn the page."Ah, think of it," he said, smiling as he saw Tonio, "written language the possession of those who took such pains to preserve it. I am forever entranced with the forms in which knowledge is given us, not by nature, but by our fellow man.”

“I touched the small sacred images. I shook my head and bit my lip, as if to say, How awful that he should have stolen these! But I also found it very funny. And further proof that God had no power over me.”

“I didn't want to be in hell, even for a moment. I sure as hell wasn't going there just to spit in the face of the Prince of Darkness, whoever he might be!On the contrary, if I was a damned thing, then let the son of a bitch come for me! Let him tell me why I was mean to suffer. I would truly like to know.As for oblivion, well, we can wait a little while for that.”

“No matter how rudely someone treats you, remain kind. Walking away at peace with yourself is worth it.”

“There is a horrifying loneliness at work in this time. No, listen to me. We lived six and seven to a room in those days, when I was still among the living. The city streets were seas of humanity; and now in these high buildings dim-witted souls hover in luxurious privacy, gazing through the television window at a faraway world of kissing and touching. It is bound to produce some great fund of common knowledge, some new level of human awareness, a curious skepticism, to be so alone.”

“It is not man who is the enemy of the human species. It is the irrational; it is the spiritual when it is divorced from the material; from the lesson in one beating heart or one bleeding vein.”

“It does not matter what it is; it matters how much there is of it; that all around the oases of your shining Western cities it exists; it is three-fourths of the world! Open your ears, my darling; listen to thier prayers; listen to the silence of those who've learned to pray for nothing. For nothing has always been their portion, whatever the name of their nation, thier city, their tribe.”

“Fear is only good when you have a choice in things.”

“Laura remarked that science was dependent upon poetry, that all scientific description was metaphoric.”

“I resolved to move just a little bit more slowly through the world, to look around myself with greater care, and to try to remain conscious of all that was going on around me at all times.”

“Maybe that was all there ever will be just that one weekend and forever this unfinished feeling...”

“On writing, my advice is the same to all. If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less. --- Ignorecritics. Critics are a dime a dozen. Anybody can be a critic. Writers are priceless. ---- Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way.--- Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write. --- The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any. Good luck.”

“One tiny flame could make so many other flames; one tiny flame could set afire a whole world.”

“If only we would wake from (these) states of oblivion with some certain sense that there was no mystery to life at all, that cruelty was purely impersonal, but we don't.”

“Your life will be filled with good things, for the demons are slain; and you will inherit Eden”

“I wish you hadn't told her. If you must know, I could have done without your telling her I commited statutory rape on the living room couch with her cousin." - Michael Curry”

“Our language needs endless synonyms for beautiful; the eyes could see what the tongue cannot possibly describe.”

“He imagined his past gone, along with his future. Death was the understanding of the immediate present: that there is finally nothing else.”

“Roget looked so profoundly timid. What is it like, working for a well-dressed lunatic who pays you triple what anyone else would pay to forget your better judgment?”

“We’re going to die and not even know. We’ll never know, and all this meaninglessness will just go on and on and on. And we won’t any longer be witnesses to it. We won’t have even that little bit of power to give meaning to it in our minds. We’ll just be gone, dead, dead, dead, without ever knowing!”