Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities.

Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.

And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

The greater amount of truth is impulsively uttered; thus the greater amount is spoken, not written.

Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.

There is not a more disgusting spectacle under the sun than our subserviency to British criticism. It is disgusting, first, because it is truckling, servile, pusillanimous--secondly, because of its gross irrationality. We know the British to bear us little but ill will--we know that, in no case do they utter unbiased opinions of American books . . . we know all this, and yet, day after day, submit our necks to the degrading yoke of the crudest opinion that emanates from the fatherland.