Edward Gorey

"Vice is nice, but a little virtue won't hurt you."

"If a story is only what it seems to be about, then somehow the author has failed."

"The Suicide, as she is falling,Illuminated by the moon, Regrets her act, and finds appalling The thought she will be dead so soon."

"I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist... I am a person who does those things."

"This is the theory… that anything that is art… is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it’s irritating."

"Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin."

"I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring."