My Characters Are Galley Slaves.

It Was An Interesting Thing To Do. Why Did I Write Any Of My Books, After All? For The Sake Of The Pleasure, For The Sake Of The Difficulty. I Have No Social Purpose, No Moral Message; I've No General Ideas To Exploit, I Just Like Composing Riddles With Elegant Solutions.

...for The Human Brain Can Become The Best Torture House Of All Those It Has Invented, Established And Used In A Millions Of Years, In Millions Of Lands, On Millions Of Howling Creatures.

You Have To Be An Artist And A Madman, A Creature Of Infinite Melancholy, With A Bubble Of Hot Poison In Your Loins And A Super-voluptuous Flame Permanently Aglow In Your Subtle Spine (oh, How You Have To Cringe And Hide!), In Order To Discern At Once, By Ineffable Signs―the Slightly Feline Outline Of A Cheekbone, The Slenderness Of A Downy Limbs, And Other Indices Which Despair And Shame And Tears Of Tenderness Forbid Me To Tabulate―the Little Deadly Demon Among The Wholesome Children; She Stands Unrecognized By Them And Unconscious Herself Of Her Fantastic Power.

My God Died Young. Theolatry I Found Degrading, And Its Premises, Unsound. No Free Man Needs God; But Was I Free?

- Might It Console You To Know That I Expect Nothing But Torture From Her Return? That I Regard You As A Bird Of Paradise? She Shook Her Head. - That My Admiration For You Is Painfully Strong? - I Want Van – She Cried – And Not Intangible Admiration. - Intangible? You Goose. You My Gauge It, You May Brush It Once Very Lightly With The Knuckles Of You Gloved Hand. I Said Knuckles. I Said Once. That Will Do. I Can't Kiss You. Not Even Your Burning Face. Good-bye, Pet. Tell Edmond To Take A Nap After He Returns. I Shall Need Him At Two In The Morning.