Quotes from The Hellbound Heart

“No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“She had opened a door... and now she was walking with demons. And at the end of her travels, she would have her revenge... Pain had made a sadist of her.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Well, here he was. They could save each other, the way the poets promised lovers should. He was mystery, he was darkness, he was all she had dreamed of. And if she would only free him he would service her - oh yes - until her pleasure reached that threshold that, like all thresholds, was a place where the strong grew stronger, and the weak perished. Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“She wanted nothing that he could offer her, except perhaps his absence.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise. Summer in its turn soon begins to sweat for something to quench its heat, and the mellowest of autumns will tire of gentility at last, and ache for a quick sharp frost to kill its fruitfulness. Even winter — the hardest season, the most implacable — dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“In moments they would be here — the ones Kircher had called the Cenobites, theologians of the Order of the Gash. Summoned from their experiments in the higher reaches of pleasure, to bring their ageless heads into a world of rain and failure.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“The flawlessly beautiful were flawlessy happy, weren't they? To Kristy this had always seemed self-evident. Tonight, however, the alcohol made her wonder if envy hadn't blinded her. Perhaps to be flawless was another kind of sadness.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“The seasons long for each other, like men and women, in order that they may be cured of their excesses.

Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise. Summer in its turn soon begins to sweat for something to quench its heat, and the mellowest of autumns will tire of gentility at last, and ache for a quick sharp frost to kill its fruitfulness.

Even winter - the hardest season, the most implacable - dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Le stagioni si agognano l’un l’altra, come uomini e donne, in modo da essere guarite dai loro eccessi. La primavera, se si protrae per più di una settimana oltre il suo tempo naturale, comincia a patire l’assenza dell’estate che ponga fine ai giorni della promessa perpetua. L’estate dal suo canto comincia ben presto a invocare qualcosa che plachi la sua calura e il più ubere degli autunni alla lunga si stanca della sua generosità e reclama una rapida, aspra gelata che lo sterilizzi. Persino l’inverno, la più dura delle stagioni, la più implacabile, sogna all’apparire di febbraio la fiamma che presto lo scioglierà. Ogni cosa si stanca con il tempo e comincia a cercare un suo contrario che la salvi da se stessa. Così agosto cedette il posto a settembre e pochi se ne lamentarono.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Gli parve che l'unica soluzione potesse essere la follia, nessuna speranza se non la perdita della speranza.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“It was that sleep itself—the act of closing the eyes and relinquishing control of her consciousness—was something she was temperamentally unsuited to.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself. So August gave way to September and there were few complaints.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“When, finally, she did sleep, it was the slumber of a watcher and waiter. Light, and full of sighs.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“The bare bulb in the middle of the room dimmed and brightened, brightened and dimmed again. It had taken on the rhythm of the bell, burning its hottest on each chime. In the troughs between the chimes the darkness in the room became utter; it was as if the world he had occupied for twenty-nine years had ceased to exist. Then the bell would sound again, and the bulb burn so strongly it might never have faltered, and for a few precious seconds he was standing in a familiar place, with a door that led out and down and into the street, and a window through which-had he but the will (or strength) to tear the blinds back-he might glimpse a rumor of morning.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Do you understand?” the figure beside the first speaker demanded. Its voice, unlike that of its companion, was light and breathy—the voice of an excited girl. Every inch of its head had been tattooed with an intricate grid, and at every intersection of horizontal and vertical axes a jeweled pin driven through to the bone. Its tongue was similarly decorated. “Do you even know who we are?” it asked.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Sin lágrimas, por favor. Es un desperdicio de buen sufrimiento.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“So intent was Frank upon solving the puzzle of Lemarchand’s box that he didn’t hear the great bell begin to ring.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Everywhere, in the wreckage around him, he found evidence to support the same bitter thesis: that he had encountered nothing in his life—no person, no state of mind or body—he wanted sufficiently to suffer even passing discomfort for.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Con el tiempo, todas las cosas se cansan y comienzan a buscar algún oponente que las salve de sí mismas.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Odiaba las fiestas. Las sonrisas pegadas con engrudo para tapar el pánico, las miradas que había que interpretar y lo peor de todo: la conversación.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“He spent three months in a wash of depression and self-pity that bordered the suicidal. But even that solution was denied him by his new found nihilism. If nothing was worth living for it followed , didn't it , that there was nothing worth dying for either.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“No passion, only sudden lust, and just as sudden indifference.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“He had certainly set his eyes on more voluptuous creatures , but something about her lack of glamour engaged him. Such women were in his experience often more entertaining company than beauties like Julia. They could be flattered or bullied into acts the beauties would never countenance and be grateful for the attention.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Everything tires with time , and starts to seek some opposition , to save it from itself.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“Allí el placer era dolor, y viceversa. Y él lo conocía tan bien que era como sentirse en casa.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“The flawlessly beautiful were flawlessly happy, weren’t they?”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

“She was indeed tired , as she'd claimed , but it wasn't the cooking that exhausted her. It was the effort of suppressing her contempt for he damn fools who were gathered in the lounge below. She'd called them friends once , these half-wits , with their poor jokes and poorer pretensions.”
― Clive Barker, quote from The Hellbound Heart

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“We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.”
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