The Vampire Armand

If I am an angel, paint me with black wings.

I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough and never will.

We can't stand it, to be alone. We cannot bear it, any more than the monks of old could bear it, men who though they had renounced all else for Christ's sake, nevertheless came together in congregations to be with one another, even as they enforced upon themselves the harsh rules of single solitary cells and unbroken silence. They couldn't bear to be alone. We are too much men and women; we are yet formed in the image of the Creater, and what can we say of Him with any certainty except that He, whoever He may be--Christ, Yahweh, Allah--He made us, did He not, because even He in His Infinite Perfection could not bear to be alone.

The human heart is my school.

How can so much beauty hide such a bruised and steely heart, and why must I love him, why must I lean in my weariness upon his irresistible yet indomitable strength? Is he not the wizend funeral spirit of a dead man in a child's clothes?

Perhaps I fear him because I could love him again, and in loving him, I would come to need him, and in needing him, I would again be his faithful pupil in all things, only to discover that his patience for me is no substitute for the passion which long ago blazed in his eyes.

And what if I never go of my own free will? Will you pitch me from some window so that I must fly or fall? Will you bolt all shutters after me? You had better, because I'll knock and knock and knock until I fall down dead. I'll have no wings that take me away from you.

If I'm an angel, paint me with black wings.

Master, the paintings, the paintings in the storage rooms!" I cried. "Forget the paintings. It's too late. Boys, run from here, get out now, save yourselves from the fire." Knocking the attackers back, he shot up the stairwell and called down to me from the uppermost railing. "Come, Amadeo, fight them off, believe in your strength, child, fight.

Please, Master, I can’t endure this,” I said. “Then, how will you endure eternity, my child? Don’t you know that’s what I mean to give you? What power under God is there that can break me?

Good was above all kind; it was to be gentle. It was to waste nothing. It was to paint, to read, to study, to listen.

Life is a tragedy, one way or another. What is certain is that you die.

But remember the overall lesson, that your love for others, and their love for you, that the increase of love in life itself around you, is what matters.