The young know how truly difficult and dreadful youth can be. Their youth is wasted on everyone else, that's the horror. The young have no authority, no respect.

A perfectly evil Devil makes even less sense than a perfect God.

I'm hoping what all sentient beings hope ... that somehow I'm part of something larger than myself, in which I play a role, an actual role that is somehow intended and meaningful.

And I realized that I’d tolerated him this long because of self-doubt.

I never changed after that. I sought for nothing in the one great source of change which is humanity. And even in my love and absorption with the beauty of the world, I sought to learn nothing that could be given back to humanity. I drank of the beauty of the world as a vampire drinks. I was satisfied. I was filled to the brim. But I was dead. And I was changeless.

Let tears gather in your eyes. You haven’t tears enough for what you’ve done to me. Six more mortal years, seven, eight…I might have had that shape!’ Her pointed finger flew at Madeleine, whose hands had risen to her face, whose eyes were clouded over. Her moan was almost Claudia’s name. But Claudia did not hear her. ‘Yes, that shape, I might have known what it was to walk at your side.

You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.