Anne Rice
Anne Rice
Anne Riceis an American author of gothic fiction, Christian literature, and erotica. She is perhaps best known for her popular and influential series of novels, The Vampire Chronicles, revolving around the central character of Lestat. Books from The Vampire Chronicles were the subject of two film adaptations, Interview with the Vampire in 1994, and Queen of the Damned in 2002...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth4 October 1941
CityNew Orleans, LA
CountryUnited States of America
A summer rain had left the night clean and sparkling with drops of water. I leaned against the end pillar of the gallery, my head touching the soft tendrils of a jasmine which grew there in a constant battle with a wisteria, and I thought of what lay before me throughout the world and throughout time, and resolved to go about it delicately and reverently, learning that from each thing which would take me best to another.
When you think night and day and every moment only of pleasing me, things will be very easy for you.
As if the night had said to me, ‘You are the night and the night alone understands you and enfolds you in its arms’ One with the shadows. Without nightmare. An inexplicable peace.
It was as if this night were only one of thousands of nights, world without end, night curving into night to make a great arching line of which I couldn’t see the end, a night in which I roamed alone under cold, mindless stars.
It seems an insult to the night to speak of purpose and intent, when this common moment is so brimming full of blessed design tranquility. All things follow their course.
The fans, the vampire groupies, love the idea of this androgynous, preternatural figure stalking the night, and craving aesthetic pleasure just as he craves blood, wearing only the best velvet clothes, and savoring red roses.
I was a newborn vampire, weeping at the beauty of the night.
It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there. And somehow, there was a disturbing comfort in that, and, despite myself, I’d envision his face.
I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste.
You were the vampire in my dream. My perfect one.
In these last few days, we were close because we were both mortal men. We saw the same sun and the same twilight, we felt the same pull of the earth beneath our feet. We drank together and broke bread together. We might have made love together, if you had only allowed such a thing. But that’s all changed. You have your youth, yes, and all the dizzying wonder that accompanies the miracle. But I still see death when I look at you. I know now I cannot be your companion, and you cannot be mine
Something in me was responding now as the audience responded, not in fear, but in some human way, to the magic of that fragile painted set, the mystery of the lighted world there.
Oh, but when love is reached through suffering, it has a power it can never gain through innocence.
It draws it's strength, this big secret, from the same root from which I draw my strength, both the good and the bad, because in the end, they cannot be separated.