“It was a strange thing: one never appeared to take a step forward int he heart or mind of this man. Those who wished, so to speak, to force their way into intimacy with him found the path blocked.”

“No, a true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could accept no doctrine. But the man who has found what he sought, such a man could approve of every doctrine, each and every one, every path, every goal; nothing separated him any longer from all those thousands of others who lived in the eternal, who breathed the Divine.”

“He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t the man who stepped forward and saved the innocent. He was lost himself. Shadows had invaded a long time ago and stolen his life. But he would give anything he had left to be the man who found a way to save Judith”

“But perhaps there are in us forces other than mind and heart, other even than the senses - mysterious forces which take hold of us in the moments when the others are asleep; and perhaps it was such forces that Melchior had found in the depths of those pale eyes which had looked at him so timidly one evening when he had accosted the girl on the bank of the river, and had sat down beside her in the reeds - without knowing why - and had given her his hand.”

“You speak of eternal life. You speak of indulging the mind and body,” said Abe. “But what of the soul?”“And what use is a soul to a creature that shall never die?”Abe couldn’t help but smile. Here was a strange little man with a strange way of seeing things. Only the second living man he’d ever met who knew the truth of vampires. He drank to excess and spoke in an irritating, high-​pitched voice. It was hard not to like him.“I begin to suspect,” said Abe, “that you would like to be one of them.”Poe laughed at the suggestion. “Is not our existence long and miserable enough?” he asked, laughing. “Who in God’s name would seek to prolong it?”

“If you’re tired of taking one step forward and two steps back, just turn around. That way you’ll be going forward in reverse.
”