While you're working, you don't have to look life in the eye.

He lost himself in the words and images conjured in his mind and for a while forgot ... He found himself flying among stars and planets.

I was secretly convinced that with such a marvel one would be able to write anything, from novels to encyclopedias, and letters whose supernatural power would surpass any postal limitations--a letter written with that pen would reach the most remote corners of the world, even that unknowable place to which my father said my mother had gone and from where she would never return.

The world's very small when you don't have anywhere to go.

Those were the words she wanted to hear and she finally surrendered to the temptation of believing them.

-Do you think it's dirty money? -All money is dirty. If it were clean nobody would want it.

Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its most interesting and accomplished examples in the 20th century - in literature, film and beyond.