Gaston Leroux

“Moi, je ne m’exprime jamais comme les autres !... Je ne fais rien comme les autres!... Mais j’en suis bien fatigué !... bien fatigué !...”

“why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing?”

“He stared dully at the desolate, cold road and the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder or more dead than his heart. He had loved an angel and now he despised a woman.”

“There are times where excessive innocence seems so monstrous that it becomes hateful.”

“I am going to die of love....daroga....I am dying of love .... That's how it is... I loved her so! And I love her still...daroga.....and I am dying of love for her, I tell you! if you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her...It was the first ...time, daroga, the first time I ever kissed a woman.. Yes, alive... I kissed her alive.... And she looked as beautiful as if she had been dead!”

“Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves.”

“I give you back your liberty, Christine, on condition that this ring is always on your finger. As long as you keep it, you will be protected against all danger and Erik will remain your friend. But woe to you if you ever part with it, for Erik will have his revenge!”

“When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me forever.”

“But you would have lots of fun with me. For instance, I am the the greatest ventriloquist that ever lived, I am the first ventriloquist in the world!”

“If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her."He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark. Thrice over, he shouted:"Humbug!...Humbug!...Humbug!”

“Richard at once declared that we must be content with that and drop the subject. I agreed with Richard. All's well that ends well. What say you, O.G?”

“What tragedies, what passions, what crimes had surrounded the idyll of Raoul and his sweet and charming Christine!... What had become of that wonderful, mysterious artist of whom the world was never, never to hear again?...”

“You want the secret off my succes; my recipe? I have always brought the same care to making an adventure novel, a serialized novel, that others would bring to the making of a poem. My ambition was to raise the level of this much maligned genre.”

“But do you love me? If Erik were good-looking, would you love me, Christine?”

“He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness!...He confesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love. ... He has carried me off for love!...He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love!...But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps!...And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty...he offered it...he offered to show me the mysterious road...Only...only he rose too...and I was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the voice...for he sang. And I listened ... and stayed!...That night, we did not exchange another word. He sang me to sleep.”

“He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar.”

“I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and I don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices.”

“Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.”

“You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself.”

“Le presbytère n'a rien perdu de son charme, ni le jardin de son éclat.”

“None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom, or indifference over his inward joy.”

“The shadow had followed behind them, clinging to their steps; and the two children little suspected its presence when they at last sat down, trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo, who, with a great bronze gesture, lifted his huge lyre to the heart of a crimson sky.”

“We recognize the touch of the Opera ghost.”

“Possibly, I too shall take the train at that station one day, and go and seek around thy lakes, O Norway, O silent Scandinavia... Possibly, someday, I shall hear the lonely echoes of the North repeat the singing of her who knew the Angel of Music...”

“Erik, Erik! I saved your life! Remember? You were scentenced to death! But for me you would be dead by now. ”

“I give you five minutes to spare your blushes. here is the little bronze key that opens the ebony caskets on the mantle piece in the Louise-Phillipe room. In one of the caskets you will find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly imitated in Japanese bronze: they will say yes or no for you. If you turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return that you have said yes. The grasshopper will mean no... The grasshopper, be careful of the grass hopper! A grasshopper does not only turn: it hops! It hops! And it hops jolly high!”

“Erik: Are you very tired?Christine: Oh, tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead.Erik: Your soul is a beautiful thing, child. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept to-night.”

“They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to catch them, each time, without hurting them.”

“Everybody knows that orthopedic science provides beautiful false noses for people who have lost their noses naturally or as a result of an operation.”

“Sometimes, the Angel [of Music] leans over the cradle... and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle at six better than men of fifty, which, you must admit is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practice their scales. And sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a wicked heart or a bad conscience.”

“You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!”

“Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!”

“All I wanted was to be loved for myself." (Erik)”

“And, despite the care which she took to look behind her at every moment, she failed to see a shadow which followed her like her own shadow, which stopped when she stopped, which started again when she did and which made no more noise than a well-conducted shadow should.”

“You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself.”

“In Paris, our lives are one masked ball.”

“Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was as golden as the sun's rays, and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock and her red shoes and her fiddle, but loved most of all, when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music.”

“Holy angel, in Heaven blessed,My spirit longs with thee to rest”

“Know that it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!...Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again!...Oh, mad Christine, who wanted to see me!”

“Look!You want to see? See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like? Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a good-looking fellow, eh?...When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me.She loves me forever! I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!...Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant! -Erik in The Phantom of the Opera”

“No, he is not a ghost; he is a man of Heaven and earth, that is all.”

“The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, acreature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of themanagers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of theyoung ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, thecloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh andblood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom;that is to say, of a spectral shade.”

“I am not really wicked. Love me, and you will see!”

“If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.”

“Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night.”

“I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears... and she did not run away!...and she did not die!... She remained alive, weeping over me, weeping with me. We cried together! I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer.”

“She's singing to-night to bring the chandelier down!”

“Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost...”

“...the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose red cheeksand the lily-white neck and shoulders who gave the explanation in atrembling voice: “It’s the ghost!”

“Hullo… the wall is a looking-glass!”