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“The crow cawed again overhead, and a strong sea wind came in and burst through the trees, making the green pine needles shake themselves all over the place. That sound always gave me goose bumps, the good kind. It was the sound an orphan governess hears in a book,before a mad woman sets the bed curtains on fire.”
― April Genevieve Tucholke, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

“His was not the hatred that arises suddenly like a storm and as suddenly abates. It was, once the initial shock of anger and pain was over, a calculated thing that grew in a bloodless way.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“River had never lost his cool, not since I'd know him. That was the thing about River. He was calm. Calm as a summer's day. Calm as a gentle nap in the sun. Even when girls were fainting and men were slitting their throats in front of you.”
― April Genevieve Tucholke, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

“The grandeur of the Institute never failed to impress Magnus - the way it towered high and mighty above everything else, timeless and unmoving in its Gothic disapproval of all that was modern and changeable.”
― Cassandra Clare, The Rise of the Hotel Dumort

“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.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I am a solitary wave in the dark and desolate sea: and the sparkling glass I drank was drugged with misery.”
― Chamisso, Adelbert von, Peter Schlemihl's wundersame Geschichte

“To want more was not just childish, but cowardly, and somehow constpatory too. Death was change; it led to new chances, new vacancies, new niches and opportunities; it was not all loss.”
― Iain Banks

“It is not real," he whispered. "This place is only a thought that has grabbed hold of you. It cannot harm you. You are not of this place, and it has no power over you. You do not need it, nor do you owe it your allegiance." I nodded, listening only to his words and not to the rattling of the windows, which had begun as soon as we stepped inside.”
― Rita Murphy, Bird

“An exaltation of spirit lifted me, as it were, far above the earth and the sinful creatures crawling on its surface; and I deemed myself as an eagle among the children of men, soaring on high, and looking down with pity and contempt on the grovelling creatures below.”
― James Hogg

“A whole Gothic world had come to grief...there was now no armour glittering through the forest glades, no embroidered feet on the green sward; the cream and dappled unicorns had fled...”
― Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust

“The attendance of that brother was now become like the attendance of a demon on some devoted being that had sold himself to destruction”
― James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

“The Aunts put their arms about one another so that their faces were cheek to cheek, and from this doublehead they gazed up at Steerpike with a row of four equidistant eyes. There was no reason why there should not have been forty, or four hundred of them. It so happened that only four had been removed from a dead and endless frieze whose inexhaustible and repetitive theme was forever, eyes, eyes, eyes.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Yet here apparently on this stifling summer afternoon was the eye of Mr. Flay at the outer keyhole of the Hall of the Bright Carvings, and presumably the rest of Mr Flay was joined on behind it.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“It was enough to drive me mad. I was no longer myself and yet I was so much more me than I had ever been before.
~Katherine Demure”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“And Mother, I love her dearly, but she flies into a panic whenever I mention women’s rights. As she sees it, it will be so much more difficult to marry me off if I am not only of a weak constitution but of a progressive mind as well.”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“Tragic tales rarely do make sense.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“Nu voiam decât să plece fără să mai scoată o vorbă, însă ÅŸtiam că dorinÅ£ele împlinite au felul lor sadic de a se răzbuna.”
― Stefana Cristina Czeller

“Mi-a vorbit despre tortură ÅŸi despre moarte aÅŸa cum alÅ£ii descriu felurile unei mese îmbelÅŸugate.”
― Stefana Czeller, Dincolo de noapte. 12 feÅ£e ale goticului

“I came from across the ocean and through the wilderness and landed here and found you hiding behind a tapestry. My fate was sealed at the sight of your stockinged feet.
~Viktor von Strassenberg”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“Inevitably, his vision verged toward the fantastic; he published a scattering of stories - most included in this volume - which appeared to conform to that genre at least to the degree that the fuller part of his vision could be seen as "mysteries." For Woolrich it all was fantastic; the clock in the tower, hand in the glove, out of control vehicle, errant gunshot which destroyed; whether destructive coincidence was masked in the "naturalistic" or the "incredible" was all pretty much the same to him. RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK, THE BRIDE WORE BLACK, NIGHTMARE are all great swollen dreams, turgid constructions of the night, obsession and grotesque outcome; to turn from these to the "fantastic" was not to turn at all. The work, as is usually the case with a major writer was perfectly formed, perfectly consistent, the vision leached into every area and pulled the book together. "Jane Brown's Body" is a suspense story. THE BRIDE WORE BLACK is science fiction. PHANTOM LADY is a gothic. RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK was a bildungsroman. It does not matter.”
― Barry N. Malzberg, The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich

“When she first saw him, she took him for a ghost. His jet-black hair fluttered in the breeze as he walked, letting her see his eyes. They seemed haunted, lost in some way. He was tall and gaunt, starkly pale in his black clothes. He was the very picture of Anton, even sharing his world-weary eyes of deepest blue. She could hardly look away from this apparition, an echo of all the memories and dreams that had haunted her these many years.”
― Amanda M. Lyons, Eyes Like Blue Fire

“My dear lady, you have no idea just how scandalous I can be. ~Peter Viktor von Strassenberg, 1905”
― Gwenn Wright, Lipstick & Bolsheviks

“Once upon a time Karen saw somebody nobody else could see. She thought to ask an old man: who were you? Once upon a time I thought to dream of medicine. Now I dream of medicine by the sea.”
― Nicholaus Patnaude, First Aide Medicine

“But there was nothing. No village or town as far as her eyes could strain. Nowhere for her saviours to come from and take her to; just fields and trees and the weeping arc of the river Greave all the way to the horizon. Just like in the books, Greaveburn was all there was; building and building until streets were foundations, roofs were floors, constantly climbing away from itself. now that Abrasia saw it, her dream of escape crumbled completely like an ancient map in her fingers. The horizon was the world's edge and there was nothing beyond it but mist and falling.

Greaveburn stood alone on this little circle of earth, the river running around and into itself like a snake eating its tail. And Abrasia was doomed to watch the sun and stars trade places for all eternity.”
― Craig Hallam, Greaveburn

“His breathing was heavy, and full of life. He shivered still, his hand finding Katty unsteady and unprepared of what was going to come next.

“I hurt you!� Nico said, his voice raised with worry.

“No, not at all, honey, my sweetest Master, but you have me, all of me, the wholeness of me and my darkness.�

“You play with the devil dear.� Nico sombered.

“No.� Katty defiantly said. “You took my blood and it made me your slave, yet I love every minute of it.�

“Tell me you love me Katty.� He said, nearing her closer than close, mending the space between them with the threads of courage. “Tell me you have no fear, nor no weakness against me. Or no shame in loving me.�

“I fear you not, my love.â€� Katty sincerely committed. “I fear only that you will be taken away by the hands of the vampire hunter, and only then, will I fall.”
― Keira D. Skye

“As he sat up, he heard soft dripping sounds from the bathroom, little plips like water slipping over the edges of the tub and into the floor. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he realized where he‟d last heard that sound. His muscles tight with strain from his earlier exertions, he stood and walked warily toward the half open bathroom door and the tub beyond it. Slipping quietly past the door, he saw that the curtain was drawn, and again the shadowed figure lay behind it. One long, slim, leg dangled from the end of the tub, beads of water gliding down its length and off the polished toes. At the other end he saw a mass of auburn curls, matted deep red near the porcelain of the tub. It was the dream and the vision again, more real now, too strong to deny. Shaking, he moved toward the curtain, gagging on the sickly smell of rust and roses, feeling the thin nylon glide between thumb and palm as he pulled it back to reveal his darkest nightmare and deepest regret. He could see the crimson water now, blood bubbles gliding over its surface and clinging to the legs dangling over the tub‟s edge. When he‟d pulled the curtain completely away from the tub and around to its opposite side, he saw her face. Her eyes were closed and he saw that her lids were bruised and purple against the translucent paleness of her face, drained completely dead white under the makeup she‟d brushed on before she‟d died. Staggering by the sight of her, he knelt by the tub and extended one shaking hand to touch her cheek. It all seemed as if he‟d walked into a horror film and once again he needed to prove to his mind that this wasn‟t real. His hand shook as he lifted it nearer to her flesh, waiting for the corpse, the supposedly dead and buried to move. He touched his quivering fingers to her face, feeling its claylike reality. The sensation caused an immediate shudder of revulsion and he fought not to vomit. Even as the moment came, the sight of her moving in the water startled him and he jumped away from the tub. It wasn‟t an obvious movement at first, only soft breaths moving in and out of her nostrils, but then her chest rose and fell with it and he quaked, feeling unstable where he knelt on the floor.

Her eyes opened next and he felt the blood fall out of his face, wanting to scream but too afraid he would cause her to take some action, to reach out and touch him, proving well and forever that he was indeed insane. Scream and you might as well slit your own throat. He swallowed the scream like a rock and stared as her eyes moved slowly in their sockets, locking on him. Slowly, as if she‟d lost control of her muscles, she rose from the tub and looked down at him, smiling. Blood water slid down her bare body, over her neck, down her back and the smooth ridges of her breasts, to slip slowly down her thighs and down over her calves. A puddle spread on the floor, and as it extended toward him he struggled to his feet, skittering away from it. As he watched it spread, he shivered, weak as he started to cry frantic, horrified tears. Breaking down, he looked back up at her face and slipped to the floor once more, his knees incapable of sustaining his own weight. The smile grew wider as she strode to his shivering form, thrown on his side and struggling to rise. The blood water seeped into his clothes, making him sick, a drop of it trickling along the lobe of his ear and into it. And then she leaned down, holding those dim, stained curls of auburn out of her face and tucking them behind her ear. Her lips parted, blue beneath the strong crimson red of her lipstick, and she spoke into his ear with the chill breath of the dead. His eyes grew wide and horrified as she spoke, the hair on his neck rising, sending a maddening shiver of fear through him. “I‟ve returned, Raven.â€� She whispered “And I want what is mine.â€� The last thing he saw before his mind, finally, thankfully, shut down was her face in front of his. They were pursed for a kiss.”
― Amanda M Lyons

“And so the afternoon stretched on, and Ezbon toasted their imminent defeat to the dregs.”
― C.N. Faust, Baron of Blood

“She will have brown eyes that say everything I ever need to know without her having to speak. She will be beyond extraordinary. She is beyond extraordinary. I will give her everything she ever wanted. She will never have to be afraid or alone. She will always have me. I will never let anything happen to her.”
― S.K.N. Hammerstone, The Rift

“We're in high school. If it didn't come from the school cafeteria, we like it.”
― S.K.N. Hammerstone, The Rift

“That Abbie is such a freaking brat who doesn’t know anything! My William is wasting away in that castle and that stuck up, self-righteous cow doesn’t even care because now she’s just all ooooo, Peter I love you! Well I don’t love Peter and he’s a jerk. Let’s go bust down the door!â€� She sat back and calmly pushed her hair from her face, “Now would you get me a soda?”
― Gwenn Wright, Lipstick & Bolsheviks