Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

“At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“Quoth the raven nevermore.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

“There is no exquisite beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, "without some strangeness in the proportion.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Ligeia

“I would have soothed-I would have reasoned; but, in the intensity of her wild desire for life,-for life-but for life-solace and reason were the uttermost folly.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Ligeia

“He who has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower -- is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

“Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue

“I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. For the court, guiding itself by the general principles of evidence- the recognized and booked principles- is averse from swerving at particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to principle, with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception, is a sure mode of attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in any long sequence of time. The practice, in mass, is therefore philosophical; but it is not the less certain that it engenders vast individual error (" A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its being unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges topics in reference to their causes, will cease to value them according to their results. Thus the jurisprudence of every nation will show that, when law becomes a science and a system, it ceases to be justice. The errors into which a blind devotion to principles of classification has led the common law, will be seen by observing how often the legislature has been obliged to come forward to restore the equity its scheme had lost. "- Landor.)”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt

“Clocks ticking, wasted time, reminded [Poe]
The coffin waits and pages lie half done
In desolation. Anonymity’s
Curse frightens writers more than Roderick
Encountering his sister’s open crypt.

- - from my poem "Poe and His Women" - -”
― LindaAnn LoSchiavo, A Route Obscure and Lonely

“And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled Romance-if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged Ashtophet of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over mine”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Ligeia

“Me quedé demasiado tiempo dentro de mi cabeza y terminé perdiéndola”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 'to make out my case,' I should rather undervalue, than insist upon a full estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may be the practice in law, but it is not the usage of reason.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue

“Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Colloquy of Monos and Una

“This the mass of mankind saw not, or, living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for myself, the Earth’s records had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of highest civilization.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Colloquy of Monos and Una

“Ligeia, Annabel Lee, and Berenice,
Supernal beauties, pleasing to the eye,
Were temporary mates and marble-cheeked
Like timeless funerary monuments.

Tremaine’s Rowena, Lady Madeline,
Insidiously felled and pushed offstage,
Had met goth’s Mister Goodbar on the page.

First, females got top billed — — then burying.
What makes an author kill his heroines?

[Source: "Poe and His Women" a poem by LindaAnn LoSchiavo; first published by Bewildering Stories Magazine, 2019]”
― LindaAnn LoSchiavo, A Route Obscure and Lonely

“Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Allan Poe

“Sus ojos no tenían vida ni brillo y parecían sin pupilas, y esquivé involuntariamente su mirada vidriosa para contemplar los labios, finos y contraídos. Se entreabrieron, y en una sonrisa de expresión peculiar los dientes de la cambiada Berenice se revelaron lentamente a mis ojos. ¡Ojalá nunca los hubiera visto o, después de verlos, hubiese muerto!”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Berenice

“¡Los dientes! ¡Los dientes! Estaban aquí y allí y en todas partes, visibles y palpables, ante mí; largos, estrechos, blanquísimos, con los pálidos labios contrayéndose a su alrededor, como en el momento mismo en que habían empezado a distenderse.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Berenice

“Sin embargo, su recuerdo estaba repleto de horror, horror más horrible por lo vago, terror más terrible por su ambigüedad. Era una página atroz en la historia de mi existencia, escrita toda con recuerdos oscuros, espantosos, ininteligibles. Luché por descifrarlos, pero en vano, mientras una y otra vez, como el espíritu de un sonido ausente, un agudo y penetrante grito de mujer parecía sonar en mis oídos. Yo había hecho algo. ¿Qué era? Me lo pregunté a mí mismo en voz alta, y los susurrantes ecos del aposento me respondieron: ¿Qué era?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Berenice

“We’d gotten off on the subject of writers―from T.H. White and Tolkien to Edgar Allan Poe, another favorite. “My dad says Poe’s a second-rate writer,” I said. “That he’s the Vincent Price of American Letters. But I don’t think that’s fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Hobie, seriously pouring himself a cup of tea. “Even if you don’ like Poe―he invented the detective story. And science fiction. In essence, he invented a huge part of the twentieth century. I mean―honestly, I don’t care as much for him as I did as when I was a boy, but even if you don’t like him you can’t dismiss him as a crank.”


We’d gotten off on the subject of writers―from T.H. White and Tolkien to Edgar Allan Poe, another favorite. “My dad says Poe’s a second-rate writer,” I said. “That he’s the Vincent Price of American Letters. But I don’t think that’s fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Hobie, seriously pouring himself a cup of tea. “Even if you don’ like Poe―he invented the detective story. And science fiction. In essence, he invented a huge part of the twentieth century. I mean―honestly, I don’t care as much for him as I did as when I was a boy, but even if you don’t like him you can’t dismiss him as a crank.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“We’d gotten off on the subject of writers―from T.H. White and Tolkien to Edgar Allan Poe, another favorite. “My dad says Poe’s a second-rate writer,” I said. “That he’s the Vincent Price of American Letters. But I don’t think that’s fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Hobie, seriously pouring himself a cup of tea. “Even if you don’ like Poe―he invented the detective story. And science fiction. In essence, he invented a huge part of the twentieth century. I mean―honestly, I don’t care as much for him as I did as when I was a boy, but even if you don’t like him you can’t dismiss him as a crank.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“We’d gotten off on the subject of writers―from T.H. White and Tolkien to Edgar Allan Poe, another favorite. “My dad says Poe’s a second-rate writer,” I said. “That he’s the Vincent Price of American Letters. But I don’t think that’s fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Hobie, seriously pouring himself a cup of tea. “Even if you don’t like Poe―he invented the detective story. And science fiction. In essence, he invented a huge part of the twentieth century. I mean―honestly, I don’t care as much for him as I did as when I was a boy, but even if you don’t like him you can’t dismiss him as a crank.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“I admire the man's genius, I sense in his writings a strong kinship with my own mind; they have a macabre quality, a voluptuous flavor of mystery and evil which attracts me strongly.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“La desdicha es diversa. La desgracia cunde multiforme sobre la tierra. Desplegada sobre el ancho horizonte como el arco iris, sus colores son tan variados como los de este y también tan distintos y tan íntimamente unidos.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Berenice

“A martyr to a barburous realm equipped with gas fixtures, a flower that took on strange new colours because its roots had been dipped in poison.
Baudelaire on Edgar Allen Poe”
― Charles Baudelaire

“He [Edgar Allan Poe] was so absorbed in his dreams that he never tried to take an interest in reality. Hence we find no moral note in Poe's work; there is one exception," William Wilson. "He took no interest in philanthropy, reforms, transcendentalism, or other movements of the day, and he disliked Emerson. One would never know from his work whether he lived nineteenth or in the eighteenth or twentieth century. One does not know from his work that there was a Mexican war or a slavery problem in his day.”
― Albert Mordell, The Erotic Motive In Literature

“The Library of Fictional Volumes.”

Ahead of us, silhouetted against a brilliant orange sunset, was a tall, rectangular stone building with banks and banks of windows.

“Fictional volumes?” echoed Cole. “You mean novels and short stories? But why would they keep the ship’s logbooks there? Aren’t logbooks nonfiction?”

Andre said, “It’s not a fiction library. It’s a fictional library of fictional books. Some are fictional fiction and some are fictional nonfiction.”

“Isn’tallfiction fictional? Isn’t that what the wordmeans?”Cole objected. “And what’s fictional nonfiction? That doesn’t meananything.”

Dr. Rust explained, “The Spectral Library is where we keep books that only exist in books. Like... What’s a good example, someone?”

“The Mad Trist of Sir Launcelot Canning,”suggested Andre.

“Exactly!The Mad Trist of Sir Launcelot Canningis a work of fiction—it’s a medieval romance. But it only exists in the Poe story ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.’ The narrator readsThe Mad Tristto his crazy friend. You can’t find it in any ordinary library, but we have a copy here in our library of fictional books. It’s fictional fiction.”
― Polly Shulman, The Poe Estate

“I Killed Poe
Hearken now I do confess:
That I killed Poe (I could do no less).
After all, he murdered the dear Fortunato,
And then wrote of it in arrogant bravado.

Thus, upon the midnight drear I did go,
To greet the poet upon the stroke.
Indeed, the time had long been set,
To meet the man upon his step.

Misfortunes thus, had made him say,
"You look well friend," only yesterday.
Yet, wrote he falsehoods as to my concern,
About my actions that he loathed and spurned.

But alas, the man had bared the door,
And thus I tapped - ta-ta tap-tap - and nothing more.

It was some moments or so it seemed,
That I demoned to the window to watch him dream.
It amused me so to hear him talk,
To run his gamut of raving thought.

To watch the terror slow creep in,
Bedevil the mind that harbored sin.
Soon I entered into his graven room,
And perched atop his timely tomb.

A beating of wings and he lay on the floor,
And this by merely tapping - ta-ta tap-tap - forevermore.

--Poems on the Run Vol. I”
― Douglas Laurent

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?" she prompted.
"I don't know, why?" he asked gamely.
"No- you askedmethat, last time. I never figured out the answer myself. But I asked everyone when I woke up- er, came back to Angleland, and even read a great many books on puzzles and riddles to try and solve it. So now I have several answers. So tell me which one is right! "
She began counting on her fingers.
"One: because they both have quills dipped in ink."
Her audience just looked at her gravely.
Alice hurried on to the next.
"Two: the American author, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe, wrote on both."
The Dodo and the Gryphon looked at each other and shrugged helplessly.
"And three- my friend Charles came up with this- because each can produce a few notes, tho' they are very flat!”
― Liz Braswell, Unbirthday

“Committing himself to the freelance’s life he lived at the edge of poverty, a southerner he stood outside of the literary establishment of new England. Poe’s pale expression in his most famous photo shows a man who believed he was born to suffer. If circumstances in his life were not propitious to suffering, he made sure to change them until they were, deep in his understanding almost as to be unconscious was a respect for the driving power of his misery. That it could take manifold forms in ways that he didn’t have to be aware of as if not he, but it could create. “E.L. Doctorow on Edgar Allan Poe”
― E.L. Doctorow, Creationists: Selected Essays: 1993-2006

“INSUFFICIENT VEGETABLE OIL,’ quoth the replicator.”
― Izumi Suzuki, Terminal Boredom: Stories