The difficulty with Poe is not figuring out which of his stories rise to the level required of this collection, but rather which of his stories to exclude from it.

In hundreds of years of wish fulfillment,never once to the demon’s bereavement,had a wish gone unable to be yielded.It was love this day, which defeated the curse,and there in Hell there was little worse,than the...

Still, the car started, so we drove off to the movies. Popcorn happened. Previews, ads, and an annoying kid all went down like clockwork. The picture started and then ended a while later, the world...

the people are the biggesthorror show on earth,have been forcenturies.

Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there’s little fun to be had in explanations; they’re antithetical to the poetry of fear.” In a horror story, the victim keeps asking why – but there can be...

If on thoughts of death we are fed,Thus, a coffin, became my bed.

The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into...

If we knew what we are, we should do as Sir Arthur Jermyn did; and Arthur Jermyn soaked himself in oil and set first to his clothing one night.

I am beyond good and evil at this point. I am beyond the lines drawn in the sand by society at this juncture. I am beyond fear, beyond religion, beyond the morals and mores. I...

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.

Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.

Franz said ‘Your picture, Viki, suggests that sense of breaking-up we feel in the modern world. Families, nations, classes, other loyalty groups falling apart. Things changing before you get to know them. Death on the...

Wives of criminals, Massau later reflected, were indeed an interesting lot. There are those who, real panthers in madness, defend their men with claws out; there are the cold and insensitive ones, who wrestling step...

Psychic change, as Todorov has recognized, subverted the genre in another way, by revoking the cultural taboos, the social censorship, that had prohibited the overt treatment of psychosexual themes, which then found covert expression in...

Your cunning has proved to be that of Cain. I grant you power over the Hellmouth. May Samael take my revenge.” The thing said with a bitter look and a voice that seemed to be...

Night was a very different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and...

Underground, in the dark wet hole that was home to the spiders and the rats, something moved. It had no right to be down there but it belonged nowhere else. Half drowned half alive it...

There is but a gentle stillness inside every cerebral. Tiny waterfalls of blood vessels rushing, becoming lethal.

Rory” I whispered. Clawing out gently beneath the duvet cover, reaching for his hand. But I couldn’t find it. And he didn’t answer.

Miranda,’ she called again. ‘Miranda!’ In the breathless silence her voice seemed to belong to somebody else, a long way off, a harsh little croak fading out amongst the rocky walls. ‘Come back, all of...

Regress towards progress – Dr Wannamaker

What is a monster? Something that grows hair all over and howls? Could be. But the real monster is within, and when it comes out, it’s as fugly as you see it, or as it...

They shared a sensation that was as addictive as a needle full of heroin to a street junkie.

What are you going to fill it with?” she asks. “Holy water or something?” “Probably Dasani,” Thomas replies.

There was something delightfully intimate about the relationship between predator and prey.

Terror is the desire to save your own ass, but horror is rooted in sympathy.

I wanted to see the bullet coming, wanted to know the exact moment of my death.

Very well, but remember this… I’ll be looking at you when you’re laid on the cross and the twelve blows are crashing down on your limbs. When the crowd is finally tired of your screams...

You can’t suspend me…I quit. I’ve seen a new side to this company in the past few months. I want nothing to do with it. Consider this as me giving in my notice. Now get...

A spring sun was shining on the rue St. Honore, as I ran down the church steps. On one corner stood a barrow full of yellow jonquils, pale violets from the Riviera, dark Russian violets,...

And I thought:History is like a horror story.

Invitation to Dance-It’s a Dance. And sometimes they turn the lights off in this ballroom.But we’ll dance anyway, you and I. Even in the Dark. Especially in the Dark.May I have the pleasure?

Flakes of snow swirled and danced across the porch. The Overlook faced it as it had for nearly three-quarters of a century, its darkened windows now bearded with snow, indifferent to the fact it was...

It’s not a good idea.

What looked like morning was the beginning of endless night

If we were to gain God’s perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying our things, we would have the same feelings...

The Medusa”)

He curled up, twitching and spasming, the pain stormtrooping through his entire body in agonizing, dizzying, pounding waves. He vomited, but it wasn’t the contents of his stomach. It was his stomach, hanging inside-out from...

Ebola then turns the insides of its host into jelly: you begin to vomit black junk which is basically your dissolved liver and internal organs.

Any writer of horror needs to at least have a good, solid love of the genre. Also, good horror writers need to have a slightly twisted sense of humor. Without humor, horror just isn’t as...

Love, really? We’re vampires, not teenagers. Lust is for the weak.

He screamed in agony as large black wings erupted from his back – each had four large talons on it.

The mirror’s light sparks in the eyes,And horrified, my lids drawn tight,I step back to that realm of nightWhere not a single exit lies…(Untitled: “I pass away this life of mine…”)

Welcome to the house of Gray and Graves where we never lie still and death is only the beginning …

As vozes confluíram num só mesmo c ngrito de vida e horror.

I shall challenge all authority. Question all who claim dominion over me. I am not a thoughtless being but a man with his own beliefs.

I think that some laughter comes from escaped horror, doesn’t it?

The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep...

Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

He’ll be gorgeous.