Quotes from The Hellbound Heart

Clive Barker ·  164 pages

Rating: (30.3K votes)


“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



About the author

Clive Barker
Born place: in Liverpool, The United Kingdom
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“This is Ireland, Finley. It's rough. It's wild. And it is holy.”
― Jenny B. Jones, quote from There You'll Find Me


“Trusting one's emotions requires constant vigilance; intelligent intuition is the result of deliberate practice.”
― Jonah Lehrer, quote from How We Decide


“One could keep open secrets only so well before they became a threat to others.”
― Ted Dekker, quote from Immanuel's Veins


“Another time, he was playing [chess] with his equal, the Duchess of Bourbon, who made a move that inadvertently exposed her king. Ignoring the rules of the game, he promptly captured it. "Ah," said the duchess, "we do not take Kings so." Replied Franklin in a famous quip: "We do in America.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Benjamin Franklin: An American Life


“[She] had heard it said that there was only one emotion which, in recollection, was capable of resurrecting the full immediacy and power of the original—one emotion that time could never fade, and that would drag you back any number of years into the pure, undiluted feeling, as if you were living it anew. It wasn’t love… and it wasn’t hate, or anger, or happiness, or even grief. Memories of those were but echoes of the true feeling.

It was shame. Shame never faded.”
― Laini Taylor, quote from Dreams of Gods and Monsters


Interesting books

1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England
(2.3K)
After the Blue Hour
(79)
After the Blue Hour
by John Rechy
Saving Grace
(10.9K)
Saving Grace
by Jane Green
Vicious
(25K)
Vicious
by L.J. Shen
Blood Vow
(13.3K)
Blood Vow
by J.R. Ward
Tsugumi
(6.7K)
Tsugumi
by Banana Yoshimoto

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.