Quotes & Sayings About Gothic Literature

When I was little, we lived on 8 acres and my mom had a horse. But when I was 7, my mom kicked my dad out, and then in order to feed us five kids, she got critters cheap or for free and raised them for food. We milked a cow, raised chickens, pigs and beef cattle. We heated our one-story house with wood and stayed cold all winter. — Bonnie Jo Campbell

The music business is not a good place for people who don't know things. — Mary J. Blige

The pagan gods are not dead, but can return to topple science with superstition and modern man with bestial pleasures that pre-date civilisation. — Richard Luckhurst

Being cheerful keeps you healthy — Solomon

Shirley Jackson's writings are a must for aficionados of the gothic and of good literature. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I love the gothic literature. It always has such great stories with characters bigger than life and the stakes are always high. And because there's always a wolf at the door, the emotions are high; the romance, the sexuality, friendships, and relationships. You don't know if the guy kissing you one minute is going to bite you the next. This heightens all of the sensibilities and emotions, and therefore, it sings to me. And that's where the music comes from. — Frank Wildhorn

You see the world in colors,
I see in Black and Red. — Irum Zahra

Scar tissue does more than flaunt its strength by chronicling the assaults it has withstood. Scar tissue is new growth. And it is tougher than skin innocent of the blade. — Shelley Jackson

Touch the stone,' said Beliah, 'and you will touch "reality", or what the ignorant of all ages think "reality" is. That kind of truth will kill you, man. You won't see morning! I have kept you all your life from such things as remorse, terror, pity. Touch the stone, and those same angels will change you into an old poor pathetic deluded dying creature. Hubert, a nurse has to shave you, your hand shakes so much. You know that don't you? You dribble at every orifice, Hubert. You've begun to smell this past year or two...' He suddenly howled as if I had actually touched the stone,'YOU WILL BE RAVAGED IN FIRES OF GRACE!'
I heard Nurse McGregor in the next ward. 'Good evening,' came her cheerful voice to the looney who had strangled his sweetheart and then buried her in his garden. 'Is it cocoa tonight, or tea, or milk?"
Beliah was weeping. Outside the eaves dripped. The whole earth was drenched with the grief of Beliah. He wept inside me. I felt his marvellous tears on my face. — George Mackay Brown

To me, steampunk and urban fantasy are naturally hinged together. And I think that's because I love the early gothic Victorian literature, and both things spring from that movement. — Gail Carriger

Gormenghast.
Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet beats away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs ...
And darkness winds between the characters.
- Gormenghast — Mervyn Peake

It was a privileged existence, but also a cage, beautifully decorated, but locked tight always. — Amber Newberry

There Peter sat in the new sunlight, plaiting the straw for baskets, until he saw the thing he had been taught most to fear advancing silently along the lea of an outcrop of rock. — Angela Carter

Sexual desire is only the frustrated desire to eat human flesh. — Christopher Frayling

Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its most interesting and accomplished examples in the 20th century - in literature, film and beyond. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I took a deep, deep breath and held it in my core; kept it close behind my protruding, fleshless ribs. I swallowed it whole. I was home. — Ava Bloomfield

The trees seemed to have eyes that were watching us and reaching out for me. They began to take on the shape of the dead. — Amber Newberry

A bad conscience makes a very good ghost. — Hope Mirrlees

When the moon was high over the moors, Rhineholt became a dark place with long, lonely corridors whose shadows gave breath to many secrets. — Amber Newberry

There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. — Charles Caleb Colton

Potential enemies make the best friends and lovers. Many a blessed union begins in adversity. — Randy Thornhorn

Laugh at yourself for man is most comical when he takes himself too seriously. — Og Mandino

I sucked a huge breath of air into my collapsed lungs. Once I could breathe again, I examined Ren's back. His white shirt was dirty and torn, and his skin was scratched and bleeding in several places. I took a wet shirt from the bag to clean his scratches, while removing little pieces of gravel embedded in his skin.
When I was finished, I grabbed Ren around the waist in a fierce hug. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. I whispered against his chest quietly but firmly, "Thank you. But don't ever ... ever ... ever do that again!"
He laughed. "If I get results like this, I surely will do it again."
"You will not!"
Ren reluctantly let me go, and I began mumbling, complaining about tigers, men, and bugs. He seemed very pleased with himself for surviving a near-death experience. I could practically hear him chanting to himself: I overcame. I conquered. I'm a man, etc, etc. I smirked. men! No matter what century they're from, they're all the same. — Colleen Houck

With all those prizes the most interesting thing is getting on to the shortlist, because that tells you who people see as your peers. — David Malouf

She kissed me on the mouth. Her mouth tasted like iced coffee and cardamom, and I was overwhelmed by the taste, her hot skin and the smell of unwashed hair. I was confused, but not unwilling. I would have let her do anything to me. — Janet Fitch

Poetry and visions, springing as they do from an ever-present sense of mortality, might easily appear morbid to the sturdy
common sense of a burgher-class in the making. — Hope Mirrlees

In Gothic fiction, characters must contend with the dead, with active hauntings or with hallucinations of hauntings, as well as whatever other trying circumstances they might find themselves in: orphanhood, lunacy, imprisonment, inheritances that go astray, troubling romantic situations. The Gothic novel does not strive for subtlety, and it isn't to everyone's taste. It can seem adolescent, an immature version of the stately, measured, grown-up realist novel, except that the line between Gothic and the realist is never clear. A disdain for the Gothic is limiting, since this literature, in all its flagrancy, has something to say about emotional as well as physical death, and a tale of a haunting can have a narrative vitality that is far from conclusive. Gothic stories linger especially in the mind. — Brenda Walker

If I was starting off now, I would probably have taken one or two different turnings along the way. — Len G. Murray

At length the grandeur of the mountains becomes monotonous; with familiarity, the landscape ceases to provoke awe and wonder and the traveller sees the alps with the indifferent eye of those who always live there. — Angela Carter

I liked the darkness, the dusty bay window, the view over the grey, muddy harbour and the towering cliffs beyond. How could I think of all that and dislike it, really, when in every nook and cranny I felt Peter's eyes peering out, watching me? — Ava Bloomfield

I could do nothing but Brooklyn shows for the rest of my career, and I could die ignorant. — Anthony Bourdain

He speaks in that strange sports talk, telling me about the start of the new season and asks if I follow baseball.
No. I really don't.
He assures me if I stay in town long enough I will become a baseball fan. It's a requirement of living in St. Louis. Everyone is a Cardinal's fan.
"Loyal," he tells me. St. Louis is a loyal town. — Gwenn Wright