“Yet mad I am not...and very surely do I not dream.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgement, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“Hay algo en el generoso y abnegado amor de un animal que llega directamente al corazón de aquel que con frecuencia a probado la falsa amistad y la frágil fidelidad del hombre".”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; — hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; — hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin — a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it — if such a thing were possible — even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“... tan seguro estoy de que mi alma existe como de que la perversidad es uno de los impulsos primordiales del corazón humano, una de las facultades primarias indivisibles, uno de esos sentimientos que dirigen el carácter del hombre.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“Tal vez sea la propia simplicidad del asunto lo que nos conduce al error.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not -- and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Black Cat
“Contemporary writers annoyed him, he found their worlds insular, their style too self-conscious and ironic. Theirs was not a literature that belonged to him.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, quote from Barracuda
“The shelf held nothing of value and it held everything of value. It was the past they’d both endured and escaped. It was despair and hope. It was life and death.”
― Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, quote from The Nest
“Ga daar de hoek om,' commandeerde Morgan Drummond. 'Snij af door het park. En waag het niet om die verrekte meter nog verder op te laten lopen.'
...
Kady greep naar haar heuptasje. 'Oom Edward, u mag wel even met mijn mobieltje bellen dat we te laat komen.'
'Maar we komen niet te laten,' zei Morgan en wendde zich tot de chauffeur. 'Of wel soms?”
― James Rollins, quote from Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. —ALBERT EINSTEIN”
― James Rollins, quote from The Bone Labyrinth
“At last evil and corruption take over,” Mearth laughed icily, her eyes filled with a wild glow. “Someday you’ll become so unstable that you’ll kill anyone you’ve ever cared about in your life, and when that happens I only hope that you leave any outsider witnesses alone as you fade out of the world.” Alecto froze for a moment, completely silent, setting the camera down on the fence and thinking things over. Mandy could see him clearly now that he was on the video, but he looked obscure. “What’s on your corrupted mind, pretty little Sydney Tar Ponds?” Mearth asked, dropping the wire cutters and stepping closer to him.
“I hate you,” he answered icily.
“Oh, no you don’t, you just think you hate me,” Mearth insisted, her voice kind, caring, almost loving. “You didn’t mean to try and kill me, you’ve been worn-out by life, you’ve been alive a very long time, your mind is a storm and your usual insight is gone.” Mandy was inclined to agree with Mearth; he looked like a storm, his eyes had dark shadows under them, he was limping when he walked, he was shivering and coughing and his head was leaning to one side slightly. Nonetheless, he still seemed to be able to reason, because when he noticed Mearth’s falsely cheerful words he glared at her hatefully, smoke trailing from his cigarette. “I’m going to tell Cheryl what you’ve done, all those times you tried to kill me, I’ll tell her and she’ll know what you did,” he threatened.
“No Sydney Tar Ponds, you won’t,” Mearth replied softly, “because if you tell her, I’ll kill her and you’ll have a few more super 8 home videos to add to the collection of celluloid memories.”
“…You wouldn’t,” Alecto exclaimed.
“If you really do love her, if you really care about her and she’s your friend, you’ll stay silent,” Mearth told him. “You think what I’m doing is cruel, sadistic, but it isn’t… you aren’t even a real person, you don’t understand.”
Alecto said nothing back to her.
The television screen faded to black and Mandy just sat there in the darkness, her expression blank.”
― Rebecca McNutt, quote from Smog City
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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