"The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls..."

"There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion."

"Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censerSwung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor."Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee--Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"Quothe the Raven, "Nevermore."

"We loved with a love that was more than love."

"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

"And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into recesses if his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe in one unceasing radiation of gloom."

"It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream."

"Never to suffer would never to have been blessed."

"By a route obscure and lonelyHaunted by ill angels only,Where an eidolon, named NIGHT,On a black throne reigns upright,I have reached these lands but newlyFrom an ultimate dim Thule --From a wild, weird clime that lieth, sublime,Out of SPACE, out of TIME."

"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'"

"And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

"From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were; I have not seenAs others saw; I could not bringMy passions from a common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow; I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone;And all I loved, I loved alone.Then- in my childhood, in the dawnOf a most stormy life- was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent, or the fountain,From the red cliff of the mountain,From the sun that round me rolledIn its autumn tint of gold,From the lightning in the skyAs it passed me flying by,From the thunder and the storm,And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view."

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor:And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore!"

"Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all."

"The best things in life make you sweaty."

"I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty."

"Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see."

"Of puns it has been said that those most dislike who are least able to utter them."

"Invisible things are the only realities."

"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."

"And all I loved, I loved alone."

"Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path."

"It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic."

"There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal."

"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat."

"To be thoroughly conversant with Man's heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of Despair."

"Philosophers have often held disputeAs to the seat of thought in man and bruteFor that the power of thought attends the latterMy friend, thy beau, hath made a settled matter,And spite of dogmas current in all ages,One settled fact is better than ten sages. (O,Tempora! O,Mores!)"

"Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again.Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chamber of my brain -Quaintest thoughts - queerest fancies Come to life and fade away;What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale today."

"The glory that was Greece."

"A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it."

"Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed."

"In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me."

"Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to know all, were the curse of a fiend."

"Men have called me mad; but the question is not settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence -- whether much that is glorious -- whether all that is profound -- does not spring from disease of thought -- from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the 'light ineffable'."

"The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world."

"All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry."

"For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique."

"A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime."

"Lord help my poor soul."

"There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man."

"A man's grammar, like Caesar's wife, should not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity."

"When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect - they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul - not of intellect, or of heart."

"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."

"I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation."

"Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness."

"How had I deserved to be so blessed by such confessions? -how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them, But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate."

"From childhood's hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone."

"It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe."

"The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame."