Quotes from The Witching Hour

“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“I believe in Free Will, the Force Almighty by which we conduct ourselves as if we were the sons and daughters of a just and wise God, even if there is no such Supreme Being. And by free will, we can choose to do good on this earth, no matter that we all die, and do not know where we go when we die, or if a justice or explanation awaits us.
I believe that we can, through our reason, know what good is, and in the communion of men and women, in which the forgiveness of wrongs will always be more significant than the avenging of them, and that in the beautiful natural world that surrounds us, we represent the best and the finest of beings, for we alone can see that natural beauty, appreciate it, learn from it, weep for it, and seek to conserve it and protect it.
I believe finally that we are the only true moral force in the physical world, the makers of, ethics and moral ideas, and that we must be as good as the gods we created in the past to guide us.
I believe that through our finest efforts, we will succeed finally in creating heaven on earth, and we do it every time that we love, every time that we embrace, every time that we commit to create rather than destroy, every time that we place life over death, and the natural over what is unnatural, insofar as we are able to define it.
And I suppose I do believe in the final analysis that a peace of mind can be obtained in the face of the worst horrors and the worst losses. It can be obtained by faith in change and in will and in accident and by faith in ourselves, that we will do the right thing, more often than not, in the face of adversity.
For ours is the power and the glory, because we are capable of visions and ideas which are ultimately stronger and more enduring than we are.
That is my credo. That is my belief, for what it's worth, and it sustains me. And if I were to die right now, I wouldn't be afraid. Because I can't believe that horror or chaos awaits us.
If any revelation awaits us at all, it must be as good as our ideals and our philosophy. For surely nature must embrace the visible and the invisible, and it couldn't fall short of us. The thing that makes the flowers open and the snowflakes fall must contain a wisdom and a final secret as intricate and beautiful as the blooming camellia or the clouds gathering above, so white and so pure in the blackness.
If that isn't so, then we are in the grip of a staggering irony. And all the spooks of hell might as well dance. There could be a devil. People who burn other people to death are fine. There could be anything.
But the world is simply to beautiful for that.
At least it seems that way to me.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“And oh, how she pitched herself into things. She would draw pictures all day long for weeks on end, then throw out the pencils and never draw another thing. Then it was embroidery with her, she had to learn it, and she'd make the most beautiful thing, fussing at herself for the least little mistake, then throw down the needles and be done with that forevermore. I never saw a child so changeable. It was as though she was looking for something to which she could give herself, and she never found it. Least ways not while she was a little girl.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“That was my nature - going from temptation after temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“You were the vampire in my dream. My perfect one.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“It draws it's strength, this big secret, from the same root from which I draw my strength, both the good and the bad, because in the end, they cannot be separated.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“I resolved to move just a little bit more slowly through the world, to look around myself with greater care, and to try to remain conscious of all that was going on around me at all times.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“She had understood before she had ever dreamed of a city such as this, where every texture, every color, leapt out at you, where every fragrance was a drug, and the air itself was something alive and breathing.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“I would have done just about anything for him.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“She had learnt a painful lesson, she thought – that as they die, the ones we love, we lose our witnesses, our watchers, those who know and understand the tiny little meaningless patterns, those words drawn in water with a stick. And there is nothing left but the endless flow.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“Maybe that was all there ever will be just that one weekend and forever this unfinished feeling...”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“I like you both! And that's better than loving you, for that's expected, you know. But liking you, what a curious surprise.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“Don’t be a pawn in somebody’s game,” she said. “Find the attitude which gives you the maximum strength and the maximum dignity, no matter what else is going on.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“And it isn’t only that I don’t believe it. I can’t. “I can’t believe it because my reason tells me that such a system, in which anyone dictates our every move—be it a god, or a devil, or our subconscious mind, or our tyrannical genesis simply impossible. “Life itself must be founded upon the infinite possibility for choice and accident. And if we cannot prove that it is, we must believe that it is. We must believe that we can change, that we can control, that we can direct our own destinies.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“Não importava que Deus no céu fosse católico, protestante ou hindu. O que importava era uma coisa mais profunda, mais antiga e mais forte do que qualquer imagem dessas: um conceito do bem baseado na afirmação da vida, na repulsa à destruição, à perversidade, ao uso e abuso do homem pelo homem. Era a afirmação do humano e do natural.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“Come on, show me all you can do.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“But to think there was meaning, a scheme to things, well, that was quite beyond her philosophical reach. She feared as she always had, that all that was ever meant was loneliness, hard work, striving to make a difference when no difference could possibly be made. It was like dipping a stick into the ocean and trying to write something – all the little people of the world spinning out little patterns that lasted no more than a few years, and meant nothing at all.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“That was the test of love, he thought dreamily, when you can’t bear to be this happy without the other person with you.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“What women hate is when you turn cold to them. If you treat them like queens, they’ll let you have a concubine or two outside the palace.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“I feel the darkness near me; I feel the light shining. And more keenly I feel the contrast between the two.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“I tell you, Richard, if you ever get ready to sell your soul, don’t bother to sell it to another human being. It’s bad business to even consider such a thing.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“In perfect understanding, it seemed, they looked at each other. Questions of failure, of haste, all the what if’s of life, did not matter. The quiet in her was talking to the quiet in him.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“All over the world there are human beings with exceptional powers,” Aaron was saying, “but you are one of the rarest because you have found a way to use your power for good. You don’t gaze into a crystal ball for dollar bills, Rowan. You heal. Can you bring him into that with you? Or will he take you away from it forever? Will he draw your power off into the creation of some mutant monster that the world does not want and cannot abide? Destroy him, Rowan. For your own sake. Not for mine. Destroy him for what you know is right.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“What have you seen with your eyes?" asked the old woman. "What have you seen that you knew should not be there?”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“I believe nothing, and therefore like many who believe nothing, I must make something, and that something is the meaning which I give to my life. The saving of witches, the study of the supernatural, these are my lasting pleasures; they make me forget that I do not know why we are born, or why we die, or why the world is here.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“When he speaks into your ear so that
no one can hear, he will say he is your slave, that he’s passed to you from Deirdre. But it’s a lie, my dear,
a vicious lie. He’ll make you his and drive you mad if you refuse to do his will. That is what he’s done to
them all.’ She stopped, her wrinkled brows tightening, her eyes drifting off across the dusty surface of the
table. ‘Except for those who were strong enough to rein him in and make him the slave he claimed to be,
and use him for their own ends… ’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Their own endless wickedness.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“she appeared in a dashing fur coat and very high heels, with a bottle of bootleg whiskey in a brown paper bag from which she drank all during the meeting, erupting into wild laughter”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“He’ll take from your mind the answer best suited to lead you on, to enthrall you. He’ll weave a web of deceits so thick you won’t see the world through it. He wants your strength and he’ll say what he must say to get it. Break the chain, child! You’re the strongest of them all! Break the chain and he’ll go back
to hell for he has no other place to go in all the wide world to find strength like yours. Don’t you see?
He’s created it. Bred sister to brother, and uncle to niece, and son to mother, yes, that too, when he had
to do it, to make an ever more powerful witch, only faltering now and then, and gaining what he lost in one generation by even greater strength in the next. What was the cost of Antha and Deirdre if he could have a Rowan!”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

“And so a ghost of him had been created by her hatred and her rage. It was fading, yet it still stalked her, even here in the safe hallways of her own domain.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour

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“He opened his eyes then, white fire flaring hotly within them.
“Send me home, Legna,” he commanded her, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion.
She moved her head in affirmation even as she leaned toward him to catch his mouth once more in a brief, territorial kiss, her teeth scoring his bottom lip as she broke away. It was an incidental wound, one he could heal in the blink of an eye. But he wouldn’t erase her mark on him, and they both knew it.
Finally, she stepped back, closed her eyes, and concentrated on picturing his home in her thoughts. She had been in his parlor dozens of times as a guest, always accompanied by Noah. His library, his kitchen, even the grounds of the isolated estate were well known to her. She could have sent him to any of those locations.
But as she began to focus, her mind’s eye was filled with the image of a dark, elegant room she had never seen before. Hand-carved ebony-paneled walls soared up into a vast ceiling, enormous windows of intricate stained glass spilled colored light over the entire room as if a multitude of rainbows had taken up residence. It all centered around an enormous bed, the coverlet’s color indistinguishable under the blanket of colorful dawn sunlight that streamed into the room. She could feel the sun’s warmth, ready and waiting to cocoon any weary occupant who thrived on sleeping in the heat of the muted daylight sun. It was a beautiful room, and she knew without a doubt that it was Gideon’s bedroom and that he had shared the image of it with her. If she sent him there, it would be the first time she had ever teleported someone to a place she had not first seen for herself. The ability to take images of places from others’ minds for teleporting purposes was an advanced Elder ability.
“You can do it,” he encouraged her softly, all of his thoughts and his will completely full of his belief in that statement.
Legna kept his gaze for one last long moment, and with a flick of a wrist sent him from the room with a soft pop of moving air. She exhaled in wonder, everything inside of her knowing without a doubt that he had appeared in his bedroom, safe and sound, that very next second. Legna turned to look at her own bed and wondered how she would ever be able to sleep.
Nelissuna . . . go to bed. I will help you sleep.
Gideon’s voice washed through her, warming her, comforting her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. This was the connection that Jacob and Isabella shared. For the rest of the time both of them lived, each would be privy to the other’s innermost thoughts. She realized that because he was the more powerful, it was quite possible he would be able to master parts of himself, probably even hide things from her awareness and keep them private—at least, until she learned how to work her new ability with better skill. After all, she was a Demon of the Mind. It was part of her innate state of being to figure the workings of their complex minds.
She removed her slippers and pushed the sleeves of her dress from her shoulders so that it sheeted off her in one smooth whisper of fabric. She closed her eyes, avoiding looking in the mirror or at herself, very aware of Gideon’s eyes behind her own.
His masculine laughter vibrated through her, setting her skin to tingle.
So, you are both shy and bold . . . he said with amusement as she quickly slid beneath her covers. You are a source of contradictions and surprises, Legna. My world has begun anew.
As if living for over a millennium is not long enough? she asked him.
On the contrary. Without you, it was far, far too long. Go to sleep, Nelissuna.
And a moment after she received the thought, her eyes slid closed with a weight she could not have contradicted even if she had wanted to.
Her last thought, as she drifted off, was that she had to make a point of telling Isabella that she might have been wrong about what it meant to have another to share one’s mind with.”
― Jacquelyn Frank, quote from Gideon

“Anyway, you're to have four sets- to match jewels, I suppose- white gold, pale gold, yellow gold and rose gold. Can't have your oculars clashing with your bracelets, I suppose. I'll send the 'prentice up with them later. I'm waiting for the frames to cool now."
"If the Princess is not here, you can leave them with her handmaiden, Iris," Lady Thalia put in, and came around to take a look at the Sophont's handiwork. She blinked. "Good heavens. That is 'much' more flattering!"
"Yes, it is," Balan agreed with a lopsided smile. "Now you can see what pretty eyes she has. Well, I'm off! Lady Thalia, it was a pleasure meeting you. Princess, a delight to serve you!"
As soon as he was out of the room, Andie was out of the chair. Picking up the skirt of her gown this time to keep it from tripping her, she ran to her bedroom to peer into the little mirror over her dressing table.
The difference was astounding. The old oculars had been small, vaguely rectangular, and had cut across her face like a slash mark. These were large, circular and, for the first time, did not obscure her eyes. If anything, they made her eyes look bigger, like those of a young animal, soft and giving an impression of innocence and vulnerability. The frame, of white gold, was very simple and polished, somehow less fussy than Balan's frame of twisted wire had been.
"Gracious!" Iris exclaimed. "What a difference!"
"You don't think they look-well- 'owlish'?" Lady Thalia asked, a little doubtfully.
"Not a bit!" Iris declared. "Just look how big they make her eyes look! And 'you've' heard all those daft poets, my Lady, going on about a girl's eyes supposed to be like a doe's, or big pools of water!”
― Mercedes Lackey, quote from One Good Knight

“If I had to guess, nephew, I would surmise that you are not in direct trouble as such. However, I will confess to the distinct and unsettling feeling that very large, very ponderous and most momentous wheels have been set in motion. When that happens I believe the lessons of history tend to indicate that it is best not to be in their way. Even without meaning harm, the workings and progress of such wheels are on a scale which inevitably reduces the worth of individual lives to an irrelevance at best.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist

“People who sneer at a half a loaf of bread have never been hungry." George Reedy”
― Robert A. Caro, quote from Master of the Senate

“fortify the bank of the Rhône for a distance of eighteen miles between the Lake of Geneva and the Jura, the frontier between the Helvetii and the Sequani. This was effected by means of a rampart sixteen feet high with a trench running parallel. He then placed redoubts at intervals along the fortification and garrisoned them with pickets,”
― Gaius Julius Caesar, quote from The Conquest of Gaul

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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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