“There was something vampiric about. . music. It must have sounded supernatural even to those who don't believe in the supernatural. . .the way harmony could be layered upon harmony until you felt yourself dissolving in the sound. So eloquent of dread it was, this music.”

“This evil, this concept, it comes from disappointment, from bitterness! Don't you see? Children of Satan! Children of God! Is this the only question you bring to me, is this the only power that obsesses you, so that you must make us gods and devils yourself when the only power that exists is inside ourselves? How could you believe in these old fantastical lies, these myths, these emblems of the supernatural?”

“But what I felt was inexpressible gratitude for the music, that in this horror there could be something as beautiful as that.”

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

“You know nothing... And suppose the vampire who made you knew nothing, and the vampire who made that vampire knew nothing, and the vampire before him knew nothing, and so it goes back and back, nothing proceeding from nothing, until there is nothing! And we must live with the knowledge that there is no knowledge.”

“The supernatural world has always been more real to me than the real world.”

“If you could see yourself, hear your own voice, your music. . you wouldn't see darkness. . you'd see an illumination that is all your own. . light and beauty come together in you in a thousand different patterns.”