Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.

When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me forever.

She's singing to-night to bring the chandelier down!

You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!

I am not really wicked. Love me, and you will see!

If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.

Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost.