“Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”

A Dream Within A Dream, Edgar Allan Poe

“I could not love except where Death
Was mingling his with Beauty's breath ?”

Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poem, Edgar Allan Poe

“From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.”

Alone, Edgar Allan Poe

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

Eleonora, Edgar Allan Poe

“It is evident that we are hurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge--some never-to-be imported secret, whose attainment is destruction.”

MS. Found in a Bottle, Edgar Allan Poe

“My best friend would be the man who gave me a pistol that I might blow out my brains.”

on his deathbed, Edgar Allan Poe

“Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows.”

Shadow, Edgar Allan Poe

“Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?”

The Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe

“But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.”

The Conqueror Worm, Edgar Allan Poe

“While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous
throng rush out forever,
And laugh - but smile no more.”

The Haunted Palace, Edgar Allan Poe

“And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.”

The Pit And The Pendulum, Edgar Allan Poe

“Eagerly I wished the morrow; --vainly I
had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--
sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom
the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.”

The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe Recommended by Tabitha.

“Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.”

to Selden Rodman in 1956, Conversations with Artists, Jackson Pollack

“Words themselves - the very material of our discourse increasingly take on masks or disguises.”

Dennis Potter

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough.”

In the Station of the Metro, Ezra Pound

“Do you ever put your arms out and spin and spin and spin? Well that's what love is like. Makes you heart race, turns your world upside-down. But if you're not careful, if you don't keep your eyes on something still, you can lose your balance. You can't see what's happening to the people around you...You can't see that you're about to fall...”

Practical Magic [movie] Recommended by Asunder.

“Some reds are unnatural enemies,
they crawl out of open veins,
they creep and slide from gaping wounds
like medals of pride and pain.”

The Talkative Woman and the Two Star General, Dory Previn

“I'm sick of my sister's attraction to razor blades -- and I'm sick of shrinks who can't do a fucking thing to help her.”

The Prince of Tides [movie]

“Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”

Michael Pritchard

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it in full.”

Marcel Proust

“For the possession of what we love is an even greater joy than love itself. Very often, those who conceal this possession from the world do so only from the fear that the beloved object may be taken from them. And their happiness is diminished by this prudent reticence.”

The Captive, Marcel Proust

“Hemingway has this classic moment in the 'Sun Also Rises' when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, all he can say is 'gradually then suddenly', my life is like that too... you wake up one morning afraid you're going to live.”

Prozac Nation [movie trailer]

“We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?”

Psycho [movie]

“Loneliness is a chameleon, not only different for each of us, but also different to each of us, varying according to our mood, place and time. The feeling of loneliness at 3 am may be quite different to how it feels at midday. When we feel lonely traveling, we may be missing the bluegums, or Bondi. If our lover has just left, it's different again. Loneliness is a lyrebird with a different voice every time we hear it. This is one of its difficulties: we fear loneliness because it resists our understanding, it has so many guises, it is always a stranger. Perhaps noticing its changeability is a first step towards understanding. Being alone does not always make us feel lonely: it can make us feel free, exhilarated, centred, relaxed, in touch with our sometimes hidden cores.”

Robert Pullan

“Good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.”

His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman