William Peter Blatty

“Regan had the physical syndrome of possession. That much he knew. Of that he had no doubt. For in case after case, irrespective of geography or period of history, the symptoms of possession were substantially constant. Some Regan had not evidenced as yet: stigmata; the desire for repugnant foods; the insensitivity to pain; the frequent loud and irrepressible hiccuping. But the others she had manifest clearly: the involuntary motor excitement; foul breath; furred tongue; the wasting away of the frame; the distended stomach; the irritations of the skin and mucous membrane. And most significantly present were the basic symptoms of the hard core of cases which Oesterreich had characterized as genuine possession: the striking change in the voice and the features, plus the manifestation of a new personality.”

“...the exorcist should not believe too readily that a person is possessed by an evil spirit; but he aught to ascertain by the signs by which a person possessed can be distinguished from one who is suffering from some illness; especially one of a psychological nature. Signs of possession may be the following: ability to speak with some facility in a strange language or to understand it when spoken by another; the facility of divulging future and hidden events; display of powers shich are beyond the subject's age and natural condition; and various other conditions which, when taken together as a whole, build up the evidence.”

“But I'll tell you something, Father; you give me Regan's identical twin: same face, same voice, same smell, same everything down to the way she dots her i's, and still I'd know in a second that it wasn't really her! I'd know it! I'd know it in my gut and I'm telling you I know that thing upstairs is not my daughter! I know it! I know!”

“They Said, "what sign can you give us to see, so that we may believe you?" - John 6: 30 - 31You do not believe although you have seen... - John 6: 36 - 37”

“She watched as a beer truck lumbered by with a clink of quivering warm, wet promises.”

“Procrastination is what we often call 'resistance.”

“The child was slender as fleeting hope.”

“Her shoes were comfortable. They reflected her hope for the evening.”

“The terror drifted over georgetown like the sun over a blind mans eyes”

“Your mother's in here, Karras. Would you like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it.”

“Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men's eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all.”

“Earth is a homicide victim. We lose our children. There are wars. Disease. And God comes strolling by like a cosmic Billie Burke.”

“Your thoughts are too dull to entertain.”

“Henri Bergson thought the principal function of the brain was to filter out most of reality so that we could focus on the tasks of earthly life,” he said. “When the filter is weakened by a powerful drug, what we see is not delusion but the truth.”

“Would you like to hear a nice definition of jealousy? It's the feeling that you get when someone you absolutely detest is having a wonderful time without you.”

“Every man that ever lived craved perfect happiness, the detective poignantly reflected. But how can we have it when we know we’re going to die? Each joy was clouded by the knowledge it would end. And so nature had implanted in us a desire for something unattainable? No. It couldn’t be. It makes no sense. Every other striving implanted by nature had a corresponding object that wasn’t a phantom. Why this exception? the detective reasoned. It was nature making hunger when there wasn’t any food. We continue. We go on. Thus death proved life.”

“God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.”

“As far as God goes, I _am_ a nonbeliever. Still am. But when it comes to a devil---well, that's something else.”

“How many husbands and wives must believe they have fallen out of love because their hearts no longer race at the sight of their beloveds!”

“Yet I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us . . . the observers . . . every person in this house. And I think---I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy.”

“We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops---which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair.”

“This century hasn't got the lock on insanity.”

“But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn't otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans.”

“We use concepts like "consciousness"---"mind"---"personality," but we don't really know yet what these things are.' He was shaking his head. 'Not really. Not at all.”

“From the cab stepped a tall old man. Black raincoat and hat and a battered valise. He paid the driver, then turned and stood motionless, staring at the house. The cab pulled away and rounded the corner of Thirty-sixty Street. Kinderman quickly pulled out to follow. As he turned the corner, he noticed that the tall old man hadn't moved but was standing under the streetlight glow, in mist, like a melancholy traveler frozen in time.”

“You don't blame us for being here, do you? After all, we have no place to go. No home... Incidentally, what an excellent day for an exorcism...”

“Adieu, sucky speed-reading critics and reviewers!"Terry Dare, gothic author in Blatty's book "Elsewhere", just before he crosses over.”

“Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness... and perhaps even Satan - Satan, in spite of himself - somehow serves to work out the will of God.”