People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.
God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are none so like him as ourselves.
You see that old woman? That will never happen to you. You will never grow old, and you will never die.And it means something else too, doesn't it? I shall never ever grow up.
Revenge is the concern of those who are at some point or other beaten. I am not beaten, I told myself. No, not beaten. And victory is far more interesting to contemplate than revenge.
I live lies because I cannot endure the weakness of anger, and I cannot admit the irrationality of love.
Goddamn it, do it yourself. You’re five hundred years old and you can’t use a telephone? Read the directions. What are you, an immortal idiot?
And I realized that I’d tolerated him this long because of self-doubt.
All the mortal world is a lethal enemy during those hours between dawn and dusk.
First-person narrators is the way I know how to write a book with the greatest power and chance of artistic success.
I can’t help being a gorgeous fiend. It’s just the card I drew.
Heaven would be Hell in no time if every cruel, selfish, vicious soul went to Heaven.
In his refusal to believe in anything supernatural or inherently evil, he was as unrealistic as an old voodoo queen who sees spirits everywhere.
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 i...
The truth is laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought choked half strangled or surrendered to with hu...
Merciful death. How you love your precious guilt
Would that death were like this. Would that one would sleep and sleep and sleep forever.
I was good and bad, but never wicked.
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 th...
It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there...
In the spring of 1988, I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked...