Knowledge is power-and power of one sort or another is the secret lust of human souls; and here is, beside the sense of exploration, the undefinable interest of a story, and above all, something forbidden, to stimulate the contumacious appetite.
Joseph Sheridan Le FanuThere is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it.
Joseph Sheridan Le FanuNo one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's end.
Joseph Sheridan Le FanuOld persons are sometimes as unwilling to die as tired-out children are to say good night and go to bed.
Joseph Sheridan Le FanuYou are afraid to die?' Yes, everyone is.' But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together. Girls are caterpillars when they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structures.
Joseph Sheridan Le FanuDearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu