Anne Rice, Pandora

"One moment the world is as it is. The next, it is something entirely different. Something it has never been before."

"You let me handle Marius," I said. "Now, you didn't come without you dagger."No, I did not," he said, lifting his cloak to reveal it, "And with your permission I would like to plunge it through my heart now so I will most assuredly stone-cold dead before the Master of this house arrives home to find you runnning rampant in his garden!"Permission denied."

"And then it was, that grief and pain made themselves known to me as never before. Note this, because I knew the full absurdity of Fate and Fortune and Nature more truly than a human can bear to know it. And perhaps the description of this, brief as it is, may give consolation to another. The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass. The truth is, you cannot prepare anyone for this, nor convey an understanding of it through language. It must be known. And this I would wish on no one in the world."

"The finest thing under the sun and moon is the human soul. I marvel at the small miracles of kindness that pass between humans, I marvel at the growth of conscience, at the persistence of reason in the face of all superstition or despair. I marvel at human endurance."

"What is written beneath this heavy handsome book cover will count, so sayeth this cover…"

"I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste."

"Oh to have you with me, to have you here, not to be alone, but to be with you, my beauty, you of all souls! You."