There was a young lady named Mae Who smoked without stopping all day; As pack followed pack, Her lungs first turned black, And eventually rotted away.

Not everything in life can be interpreted metaphorically; that's because things fall out on the way.

My mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible. I think we should all be as uneasy as possible, because that's what the world is like.

Interviewer: What is your greatest regret? Gorey: That I don't have one

If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point. I'm trying to think if there's sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children — oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that's true, there really isn't. And there's probably no happy nonsense, either.

I have given up considering happiness as relevant.

Such excess of passion is quite out of fashion