He had grieved for me, I'll give him that much. But then he is so good at grieving! He wears woe as others wear velvet; sorrow flatters him like the light of candles; tears become him like jewels.

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.

All the mortal world is a lethal enemy during those hours between dawn and dusk.

Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.

I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself.

I didn’t look to the shore much after this first long and memorable glimpse. I looked up at Heaven and her court of mythical creatures fixed forever in the all powerful and inscrutable stars. Ink black was the night beyond them, and they so like jewels that old poetry came back to me, the sound even of hymns sung only by men.

You see,' [Armand] said, 'killing other vampires is very exciting; that is why it is forbidden under penalty of death.