Edgar Allan Poe

Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.

Invisible things are the only realities.

In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos.

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

The grandeur that was Rome.

Lord help my poor soul.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore.

Horrors of a nature most stern and most appalling would too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and shake the innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of their possibility.

Let him talk,' said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. 'Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I a satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle.

A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.