I was the vampire Lestat again. I was back in action. New Orleans was once again my hunting ground.

Maybe that's what Hell is. You go mad. And all your demons come and get you just as fast as you can think them up.

Whipping is fifty percent show and noise.

I do want to go another way - to write something completely different.

Merciful death. How you love your precious guilt

I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.

In a way he made me think of a child doll, with briliant faintly red-brown glass eyes - a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him evevn more radiant than he was. "That's what you always want," he said softly... "When you found me under Les Innocents," he said, "you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvevt with great embroidered sleeves." "Yes," I said, "and comb your hair, your beautiful russet hair." My tone was angry. "You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.