Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine.

Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?

By a route obscure and lonely Haunted by ill angels only, Where an eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule -- From a wild, weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE, out of TIME.

When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straight jacket.

The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.

In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.

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