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 feel like an outsider, and I always will feel like one. I've always felt that I wasn't a member of any particular group.

There are so many books I mean to read, and things I mean to see.

Then, are you master of us all? You didn't teach her that. Was she supposed to imbibe it from my quiet subservience?

I'm speaking of the character of human beings, not what they believe in. I'm speaking of those who won't accept a useless life just because they were born to it. I mean those who would be something better. They work, they sacrifice, they do things..." He was moved by this, and I was a little surprised that I'd said it. Yet I felt I'd had hurt him somehow. "There is blessedness in that." I said. "There's sanctity. And God or no God, there is goodness in it. I know this the way I know the mountains are out there, that the stars shine.

The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They've always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply.

My life's been too much of a self-created vocation. And there are times when I think I've done everything in the name of defiance.