She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening. She has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in a no-man’s land between life and death, sleeping and waking. — Angela Carter, “The Lady… Continue reading Angela Carter
I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end. — Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca. (Victor Gollancz 1938)
When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me… And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption… Continue reading Angela Carter
And I pray one prayer–I repeat it till my tongue stiffens–Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you–haunt me, then!…Be with me always–take any form–drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! ― Emily Brontë , Wuthering Heights.… Continue reading Emily Brontë
I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other. — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. (Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones 1818)
There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion. ― Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood’s hour I have not beenAs others were—I have not seenAs others saw—I could not bringMy passions from a common spring—From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow—I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone—And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— — Edgar Allan Poe, from “Alone,” American Poetry: The Nineteenth… Continue reading Edgar Allan Poe
