Quotes by Anne Rice

And this notion of the meaninglessness of our lives here began to enflame us.I took up the theme again that music and acting were good because they drove back chaos. Chaos was the meaninglessness of day-to-day life, and if we were to die now, our lives would have been nothing but meaninglessness.

The human heart is my school.

Dont be a fool for the Devil, darling.

It was as if this night were only one of thousands of nights, world without end, night curving into into night to make a great arching line of which I couldnt see the end, a night in which I roamed alone under cold, mindless stars.

One will hate you for taking his life, another will run to excesses that you scorn. A third will emerge mad and raving, another a monster you cannot control. One will be jealous of your superiority, another shut you out... And the veil will always come down between you Make a legion, you will be, always and forever alone!

Three generations before I was the one meant for the necklace. I saw him when I was three years old, so clear and strong that he could slip his warm hand in mine, he could lift me in theair, yes, lift my body, but I refused him. I turned my back on him. I told him, You go back to the hell from which you came. And I used my power to fight him.

Because if its really true that theres no order, then anything can happen to us. Anything at all. Theres no real natural law, no right and wrong thats immutable, and the world is suddenly a savage place where any number of things can go wrong.

It has its dark splendor, to walk the nightmare terrain forever.

I am in love with you, I responded.He laughed the most beguiling and gentle laugh.Of course you are, he replied. I understand perfectly because Im in love with myself. The fact that Im not transfixed in front of the nearest mirror takes a great deal of self-control.It was my turn to laugh.

No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don’t you think? The young are eternally desperate,” he said frankly. “And books, they offer hope — that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe one is saved.

Ah, but prophecies have a way of fulfilling themselves, Khayman said. Thats the magic of it. We all understood it in ancient times. The power of charms is the power of the will; you might say that we were all geniuses of psychology in those dark days, that we could be slain by the power of anothers designs. And the dreams, Marius, the dreams are but a part of the great design.

To die or not to die, that is the question; it is nobler to live in torment and rage than not to live at all?

I dont believe in anything, Mother, I said. You told Armand long ago that you believe youll find answers in the great jungles and forests; that the stars will finally reveal a vast truth. But I dont believe in anything. And that makes me stronger than you think

Resignation requires will, and will requires decision, and decision requires belief, and belief requires that there is something to believe in!

First time my master’s in English literature ever proved useful.

How pathetic it is to describe these things which cant truly be described.

And he would listen, making only a few comments, always sympathetic, so that when I left him I had the distinct impression he had solved everything for me.

You have a light in you that’s almost blinding. But in me there’s only darkness. Sometimes I think it’s like the darkness that infected you that night in the inn when you began to cry and to tremble. You were so helpless, so unprepared for it. I try to keep the darkness from you because I need your light. I need it desperately, but you don’t need the darkness.

What if the drive to survive was a form of faith, a form of prayer?

There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world -- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. Thats all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in to love or to learn it does not have value.