She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image precious. ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Modern Library; Modern Library edition June 1, 1998) Originally published June 20th 1890.
It seems that in the advanced stages of stupidity, a lack of ideas is compensated for by an excess of ideologies. ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel’s Game. (Planeta 2013) Originally published 2008.
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
There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all; and although no airs blew from out the Heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumberable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tullips with wings. ― Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Island of the Fay,” The Fall… Continue reading Edgar Allan Poe
