There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.

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.

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.

The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls.

[E]very plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points tend to the development of the intention.