Fitz-James O'Brien Quotes & Sayings

We love the night and it's quiet. — Fitz-James O'Brien

This wine is grand. This poison is grand. It is fine to have good wine to drink, and good poison to kill with, is it not?
("The Wondersmith") — Fitz-James O'Brien

Brandy, which is fallen and accursed wine, as devils are fallen and accursed angels ...
("The Wondersmith") — Fitz-James O'Brien

Golosh Street is an interesting locality. All the oddities of trade seemed to have found their way thither and made an eccentric mercantile settlement. There is a bird-shop at one corner. Immediately opposite is an establishment where they sell nothing but ornaments made out of the tinted leaves of autumn, varnished and gummed into various forms. Further down is a second-hand book-stall. There is a small chink between two ordinary-sized houses, in which a little Frenchman makes and sells artificial eyes, specimens of which, ranged on a black velvet cushion, stare at you unwinkingly through the window as you pass, until you shudder and hurry on, thinking how awful the world would be if everyone went about without eyelids. Madame Filomel, the fortune-teller, lives at No. 12 Golosh Street, second storey front, pull the bell on the left-hand side. Next door to Madame is the shop of Herr Hippe, commonly called the Wondersmith.
("The Wondersmith") — Fitz-James O'Brien

We love the night and its quiet; and there is no night that we love so well as that on which the moon is coffined in clouds. — Fitz-James O'Brien

Now, I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood. — Fitz-James O'Brien