All Quotes By Tag: Horror

“If the town were a black hole, I was the helpless star being sucked into oblivion. It was an oblivion I craved.”

“Some of our truths are scarier than our horrors.”

“I would like [my readers] to better understand human beings and human life as a result of having read [my] stories. I’d like them to feel that this was an experience that made things better for them and an experience that gave them hope. I think that the kind of things that we talk about at this conference — fantasy very much so, science fiction, and even horror — the message that we’re sending is the reverse of the message sent by what is called “realistic fiction.” (I happen to think that realistic fiction is not, in fact, realistic, but that’s a side issue.) And what we are saying is that it doesn’t have to be like this: things can be different. Our society can be changed. Maybe it’s worse, maybe it’s better. Maybe it’s a higher civilization, maybe it’s a barbaric civilization. But it doesn’t have to be the way it is now. Things can change. And we’re also saying things can change for you in your life. Look at the difference between Severian the apprentice and Severian the Autarch [in The Book of the New Sun], for example. The difference beteween Silk as an augur and Silk as calde [in The Book of the Long Sun]. You see?We don’t always have to be this. There can be something else. We can stop doing the thing that we’re doing. Moms Mabley had a great line in some movie or other — she said, “You keep on doing what you been doing and you’re gonna keep on gettin’ what you been gettin’.” And we don’t have to keep on doing what we’ve been doing. We can do something else if we don’t like what we’re gettin’. I think a lot of the purpose of fiction ought to be to tell people that.”

“These fools who haven’t the slightest idea how to live the morals they espouse. These fools who proclaim themselves men of God, yet show not the slightest reverance to His word…Is it any different from a drunkard preaching temperance? A whore preaching modesty?”

“Here is a list of terrible things,The jaws of sharks, a vultures wingsThe rabid bite of the dogs of war,The voice of one who went before,But most of all the mirror’s gaze,Which counts us out our numbered days.”

“It is dark. You cannot see. Only the hint of stars out the broken window. And a voice as old as the Snake from the Garden whispers, ‘I will hold your hand.”

“Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,that soft summer morninground a turning in the path,the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,its legs in the air like a woman in needburning its wedding poisonslike a fountain with its rhythmic sobs,I could hear it clearly flowing with a long murmuring sound,but I touch my body in vain to find the wound.I am the vampire of my own heart,one of the great outcasts condemned to eternal laughterwho can no longer smile.Am I dead?I must be dead.”

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.”

“We’d stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You’d think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn’t.”

“Sometimes you don’t even know how special you might be. Sometimes it takes moments of horror or happiness to, if you will, unleash that knowledge.”

“A lizard brain fired the gun that wounded you, but it was the combination of three brains that orchestrated the elaborate circumstances in which the trigger was pulled. Way back when, the Landlord believed a second brain would endow some of his lower life forms with the capacity for emotional connections. By adding the third brain, he probably planned on having his… higher forms empowered with the ability to not only think before acting, but to feel regret afterwards when their actions were wrong. But that’s not what happened, is it?”

“There are people in the world, who are just wrong, and then there are the masses of population that are right, or at the very least they lie in the veil of between. I on the other hand, do not belong to any group. I don’t exist. It’s not that I don’t have substance; I have a body like everyone else. I can feel the fire when it burns against my skin, the rain when it caresses my face and the breeze as it fingers my hair. I have all the senses that other people do. I am just empty, inside.”

“I Hear the sledges with the bells – Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells – From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. II Hear the mellow wedding bells – Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! – From the molten – golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle – dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! – how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells – Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells – To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! III Hear the loud alarum bells – Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, Leaping higher, higher, higher, With a desperate desire, And a resolute endeavor Now – now to sit, or never, By the side of the pale – faced moon. Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells Of Despair! How they clang, and clash and roar! What a horror they outpour On the bosom of the palpitating air! Yet the ear, it fully knows, By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells – Of the bells – Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells – In the clamor and the clanging of the bells! IV Hear the tolling of the bells – Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people – ah, the people – They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone – They are neither man nor woman – They are neither brute nor human – They are Ghouls: – And their king it is who tolls: – And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A paean from the bells! And his merry bosom swells With the paean of the bells! And he dances, and he yells; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the paean of the bells: – Of the bells: Keeping time, time, time In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells – Of the bells, bells, bells: – To the sobbing of the bells: – Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells – Of the bells, bells, bells – To the tolling of the bells – Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells, – To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. ”

“The truth of the matter was something much more subtle and tremendous than any plain physical miracle could ever be. But never mind that. The important thing was that, when I did see the stars (riotously darting in all directions according to the caprice of their own wild natures, yet in every movement confirming the law), the whole tangled horror that had tormented me finally presented itself to me in its truth and beautiful shape. And I knew that the first, blind stage of my childhood had ended.”

“Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, ‘Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.’ Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer.”