Susan Kay (born 1952) is a British writer, the author of two award-winning novels: Legacy and Phantom.
Happiness is like the first blissful intoxication of morphine. It doesn't last very long.
Death was the ultimate power and I his eager, willing apprentice.
Great beauty is often perceived by human senses as pain.
Memories are like fireflies darting across the surface of my mind, showing me here and there images so sharp and vivid that I catch my breath in wonder before the vignette disappears, sinking like a pebble into the quicksand of regret and recrimination.
In point of fact I was a perfectly devoted and dutiful little Catholic—until the day I learned that animals have no souls.
I can make anything disappear, if I really want to.
Killing is like riding, you see. One never really loses the knack.
I have often thought I would have been quite happy as a spider. Even a spider has the right to a mate.
Night after night the nightingale came to beg for divine love, but though the rose trembled at the sound of his voice, her petals remained closed to him. . . Flower and bird, two species never meant to mate. Yet at length the rose overcame her fear and from that single, forbidden union was born the red rose that Allah never intended the world to know.
My mind has touched the farthest horizons of mortal imagination and reaches ever outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand. And yet, like Faust, I look in vain, I learn in vain. . . For as long as I live, no woman will ever look on me in love.
None of us can choose where we shall love.
All beauty must have its imperfections, all happiness its share of sorrow.
I had reached up and pulled the castle of dreams down around him.
Hell is not a place, it's a state of mind and body; hell is obsession with a voice, a face, a name.
She wanted an Angel of Music. . . an angel who would make her believe in herself at last. I'd been the Angel of Doom for the khanum. There was no reason in the world why I could not be the Angel of Music for Christine. I couldn't hope to be a man to her, I couldn't ever be a real, breathing, living man waking at her side and reaching out for her. . . But I could be her angel' -Erik
And it's really very difficult to kill someone when all your inner instincts would oblige you to take off your hat first!