Interview With The Vampire Lestat Quotes

I never lie," I said offhand. "At least not to those I don't love.

I love you still, that's the torment of it. Lestat I never loved. But you! The measure of my hatred is that love. They are the same! Do you know now how much I hate you!

Don't be a fool for the Devil, darling.

I allowed myself to forget how totally I had fallen in love with Lestat's iridescent eyes, that I'd sold my soul for a many-colored and luminescent thing, thinking that a highly reflective surface conveyed the power to walk on water.

Ah, come now. I look like an angel, but I'm not. The old rules of nature encompass many creatures like me. We're beautiful like the diamond-backed snake, or the striped tiger, yet we're merciless killers

His blood coursed through my veins sweeter than life itself. And as it did, Lestats words made sense to me. I knew peace only when I killed and when I heard his heart in that terrible rhythm, I knew again what peace could be.

What would Christ need have done to make me follow him like Matthew or Peter? Dress well, to begin with. And have a luxurious head of pampered yellow hair

I’d like to meet the devil some night,’ he said once with a malignant smile. ‘I’d chase him from here to the wilds of the Pacific. I am the devil.

I don’t know whether I’m the hero or the victim of this tale. But either way, shouldn’t I dominate it? I’m the one really telling it, after all.

It was as if I had only just been able to see colours and shapes for the first time. I was so enthralled with the buttons on Lestat's black coat that I looked at nothing else for a long time.

we do good when we make others forget their sorrow, make them forget for a little while

You make life when you play,” I said. “You create something from nothing. You make something good happen.

 ‘She’s an era for you, an era of your life. If and when you break with her, you break with the only one alive who has shared that time with you. You fear that, the isolation of it, the burden, the scope of eternal life.

I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself. I

What can the damned really say to the damned?

be careful what you wish for; your wish might come true.

Some things one doesn’t want to remember.

there was no time in Lestat's plan for anything but his plan.

how do you go on breathing and moving and doing things when you know there is no explanation?

what I felt was inexpressible gratitude for the music, that in this horror there could be something as beautiful as that.

For the moment, death is spoiling life for you, that’s all. But life is more important than death.

I think you're like a man who loses an arm or a leg and keeps insisting that he can feel pain where the arm or leg used to be.

Killing is no ordinary act,' said the vampire. 'One doesn't simply glut oneself on blood.' He shook his head. 'It is the experience of another's life for certain, and often the experience of the loss of that life through the blood, slowly. It is again and again the experience when I sucked the blood from Lestat's wrist and felt his heart pound with my heart. It is again and again a celebration of that experience; because for vampires that is the ultimate experience.

The great adventure of our lives. What does it mean to die when you can live until the end of the world? And what is ‘the end of the world’ except a phrase, because who knows even what is the world itself?

That passivity in me has been the core of it all, the real evil. That weakness, that refusal to compromise a fractured and stupid morality, that awful pride! For that, I let myself become the thing I am, when I knew it was wrong. For that, I let Claudia become the vampire she became, when I knew it was wrong. For that, I stood by and let her kill Lestat, when I knew that was wrong, the very thing that was her undoing. I lifted not a finger to prevent it. And Madeleine, Madeleine, I let her come to that, when I should never have made her a creature like ourselves. I knew that was wrong! Well, I tell you I am no longer that passive, weak creature that has spun evil from evil till the web is vast and thick while I remain its stultified victim. It's over!

It’s an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater luster to our colors, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn’t destroy us, if it doesn’t burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.

The truth is most women are weak, be they mortal or immortal. But when they are strong, they are absolutely unpredictable.

Your cigarette has become one long cylindrical ash.

she was a marginal outsider, a secret infidel of a certain sort.

Vengeance, blind and sterile and contemptible.

I’d like to meet the devil some night,’ he said once with a malignant smile. ‘I’d chase him from here to the wilds of the Pacific. I am the devil.’ And

I found her more alluring than any woman I’d known in mortal life.

He looked away as if he were again disengaging himself from the present.

By morning, I realized that I was his complete superior and I had been sadly cheated in having him for a teacher.

We were in Paris. And we were going to live forever.

They invented Satan, didn’t they? Satanic is merely the name they give to the behavior of those who would disrupt the orderly way in which men want to live.

The conflict lies between the morals of the artist and the morals of society, not between aesthetics and morality.

It will never again be what it was. It’s a wonder that I didn’t foresee the cataclysm, but then I never really envision the finish of anything that I start.

All you can do is make your life have meaning, make it good—

Being a vampire for him meant revenge. Revenge against life itself. Every time he took a life it was revenge. It was no wonder, then, that he appreciated nothing. The nuances of vampire existence weren't even available to him because he was focused with a maniacal vengeance upon the mortal life he'd left. Consumed with hatred, he looked back. Consumed with envy, nothing pleased him unless he could take it from others; and once having it, he grew cold and dissatisfied, not loving the thing for itself; and so he went after something else. Vengeance, blind and sterile and contemptible.

The trip back from Pointe du Lac was thrilling. And the constant chatter of Lestat was positively the most boring and disheartening thing I experienced. Of course as I said, I was far from being his equal.

The moon that rose over New Orleans then still rises. As

But vampires feel cold as acutely as humans, and the blood of the kill is often the rich, sensual alleviation of that cold. But

Do you think that angels are detached?” asked

I found her more alluring than any woman I’d known in mortal life. Even

she seemed to me an intriguing soul clothed

she seemed to me an intriguing soul

What would Christ need have done to make me follow Him like Matthew or Peter? Dress well, to begin with, And have a luxurious head of pampered yellow hair.

Don’t you sense the danger?’ I whispered to her. ‘Can’t you breathe it like the air?

And what is an angel but a ghost in drag? STAN RICE from “Of Heaven” Body of Work (1983)

And we may now live in an age where males are utterly unnecessary. Tell me, my prince, what is the primary use of men now, if it is not to protect women from other men?

Lestat thought the best color at all times for vampires was black, possibly the only aesthetic principle he steadfastly maintained, but he wasn't opposed to anything which smacked of style and excess.

I think I put my hands to my head as mortals do when so deeply troubled that they instinctively cover the face, reach for the brain as if they could reach through the skull and massage the living organ out of its agony.

Like all strong people, she suffered always a measure of loneliness; she was a marginal outsider, a secret infidel of a certain sort. And the balance by which she lived might be upset if she were to question her own goodness.

He showed no concern at my facing him, and as soon as our eyes met I wished the world were not one black empty ruin of ashes and death. I wished it were fresh and beautiful, and that we were both living and had love to give each other.

Listen, keep your eyes wide,’ Lestat whispered to me, his lips moving against my neck. I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion.…

Aren’t there gradations of evil? Is evil a great perilous gulf into which one falls with the first sin, plummeting to the depth?’ “ ‘Yes, I think it is,’ I said to him. ‘It’s not logical, as you would make it sound. But it’s that dark, that empty. And it is without consolation.

And why call all this Satanic?” I asked. “Why not call it chaos? That is all it would be.” “Because,” she said, “that is what men would call it. They invented Satan, didn’t they? Satanic is merely the name they give to the behavior of those who would disrupt the orderly way in which men want to live.

Remarkable, if for nothing else, because of this, that all of those men and women who stayed for any reason left behind them some monument, some structure of marble and brick and stone that still stands; so that even when the gas lamps went out and the planes came in and the office buildings crowded the blocks of Canal Street, something irreducible of beauty and romance remained; not in every street perhaps, but in so many that the landscape is for me the landscape of those times always, and walking now in the starlit streets of the Quarter or the Garden District I am in those times again. I suppose that is the nature of the monument. Be it a small house or a mansion of Corinthian columns and wrought-iron lace. The monument does not say that this or that man walked here. No, that what he felt in one time in one spot continues. The moon that rose over New Orleans then still rises. As long as the monuments stand, it still rises. The feeling, at least here...and there...it remains the same.

I supposed in my colossal conceit and self-deception that my own grief for my dead brother was the only true emotion. I allowed myself to forget how totally I had fallen in love with Lestat’s iridescent eyes, that I’d sold my soul for a many-colored and luminescent thing, thinking that a highly reflective surface conveyed the power to walk on water.

As much as I hated him, with him we were … complete.’ She looked at me, her eyelids quivering, as if the slight rise in her voice had disturbed her even as it had disturbed me. “ ‘No, only you were complete …’ I said to her. ‘Because there were two of us, one on either side of you, from the beginning.’ “I thought I saw her smile then, but I was not certain.

I wanted to forget him, and yet it seemed I thought of him always. 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 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 -- not as it had been the last night in the fire, but on the other nights, that last evening he spent with us at home, his hand playing idly with the keys of the spinet, his head tilted to one side. A sickness rose in me more wretched than anguish when I saw what my dreams were doing. I wanted him alive! In the dark nights of eastern Europe, Lestat was the only vampire I'd found.

That’s not true. Because if God doesn’t exist we are the creatures of highest consciousness in the universe. We alone understand the passage of time and the value of every minute of human life. And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would have died tomorrow or the day after or eventually … it doesn’t matter. Because if God does not exist, this life … every second of it … is all we have.

I understand you only too well …’ I said. ‘That passivity in me has been the core of it all, the real evil. That weakness, that refusal to compromise a fractured and stupid morality, that awful pride! For that, I let myself become the thing I am, when I knew it was wrong. For that, I let Claudia become the vampire she became, when I knew it was wrong. For that, I stood by and let her kill Lestat, when I knew that was wrong, the very thing that was her undoing. I lifted not a finger to prevent it.

But why . . . you've said Lestat shouldn't have made you start with people. Did you mean . . . do you mean for you it was an aesthetic choice, not a moral one?’ ’Had you asked me then, I would have told you it was aesthetic, that I wished to understand death in stages. That the death of an animal yielded such pleasure and experience to me that I had only begun to understand it, and wished to save the experience of human death for my mature understanding. But it was moral. Because all aesthetic decisions are moral, really.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ said the boy. ‘I thought aesthetic decisions could be completely immoral. What about the cliché of the artist who leaves his wife and children so he can paint? Or Nero playing the harp while Rome burned?’ ‘Both were moral decisions. Both served a higher good, in the mind of the artist. The conflict lies between the morals of the artist and the morals of society, not between aesthetics and morality. But often this isn’t understood; and here comes the waste, the tragedy. An artist, stealing paints from a store, for example, imagines himself to have made an inevitable but immoral decision, and then he sees himself as fallen from grace; what follows is despair and petty irresponsibility, as if morality were a great glass world which can be utterly shattered by one act. But this was not my great concern then. I did not know these things then. I believed I killed animals for aesthetic reasons only, and I hedged against the great moral question of whether or not by my very nature I was damned.

Not only is it not necessary to read “Interview With the Vampire” by Anne Rice before you die, it is also probably not necessary to read it even if, like Lestat, you are never going to die. If I were mortally ill, and a well-meaning friend pressed Anaïs Nin’s “Delta of Venus” into my trembling hands, I would probably leave this world with a curse on my lips.

born.

As she moved back from the vampire, I saw the tears standing in her eyes like glass in the flicker of the lights, and I felt my spirit contract in fear for her, and in longing. Her beauty was heartbreaking.

It was as though on the smell of the rain came her perfume still, and in the empty theater I could hear the throb of her beating heart.

Am I damned? Am I from the devil? Is my very nature that of a devil? I was asking myself over and over. And if it is, why then do I revolt against it, tremble when Babette hurls a flaming lantern at me, turn away in disgust when Lestat kills? What have I become in becoming a vampire? Where am I to go?

But why . . . you've said Lestat shouldn't have made you start with people. Did you mean . . . do you mean for you it was an aesthetic choice, not a moral one?’ ’Had you asked me then, I would have told you it was aesthetic, that I wished to understand death in stages. That the death of an animal yielded such pleasure and experience to me that I had only begun to understand it, and wished to save the experience of human death for my mature understanding. But it was moral. Because all aesthetic decisions are moral, really.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ said the boy. ‘I thought aesthetic decisions could be completely immoral. What about the cliché of the artist who leaves his wife and children so he can paint? Or Nero playing the harp while Rome burned?’ ‘Both were moral decisions. Both served a higher good, in the mind of the artist. The conflict lies between the morals of the artist and the morals of society, not between aesthetics and morality. But often this isn’t understood; and here comes the waste, the tragedy. An artist, stealing paints from a store, for example, imagines himself to have made an inevitable but immoral decision, and then he sees himself as fallen from grace; what follows is despair and petty irresponsibility, as if morality were a great glass world which can be utterly shattered by one act. But this was not my great concern then. I did not know these things then. I believed I killed animals for aesthetic reasons only, and I hedged against the great moral question of whether or not by my very nature I was damned. ’Because, you see, though Lestat had never said anything about devils or hell to me, I believed I was damned when I went over to him, just as Judas must have believed it when he put the noose around his neck. You understand?

And you did get into the coffin?” “I had no choice. I begged Lestat to let me stay in the closet, but he laughed, astonished. ‘Don’t you know what you are?’ he asked.

I allowed myself to forget how totally I had fallen in love with Lestat’s iridescent eyes, that I’d sold my soul for a many-colored and luminescent thing, thinking that a highly reflective surface conveyed the power to walk on water.

«Ma perché... ha detto che Lestat non a avrebbe dovuto farla cominciare con le persone. Voleva dire... vuol dire che per lei era una scelta estetica , non morale?» «Me l'avessi chiesto allora, t'avrei detto che era estetica, che desideravo comprendere la morte per stadi successivi. Che la morte d'un animale mi procurava un tale piacere e una tale esperienza che avevo appena cominciato a capirla, e desideravo serbare l'esperienza della morte umana per una comprensione più matura. Ma era morale, perché tutte le decisioni estetiche sono morali, in realtà »>. << Non capisco- disse il ragazzo. Pensavo che le decisioni estetiche potessero essere completamente immorali. Come la mettiamo col cliché dell'artista che abbandona moglie e figli per poter dipingere? O con Nerone che suona l'arpa mentre Roma brucia?» "Entrambe sono decisioni morali, al servizio d'un bene superiore, nella mente dell'artista. Il conflitto è tra la morale dell'artista e la morale della società, non tra l'estetica e la morale. Ma spesso non lo si comprende; e questa è la rovina, la tragedia. Un artista che ruba dei colori in un negozio, per esempio, crede di aver preso una decisione inevitabile ma immorale, e si vede come decaduto dalla grazia; ne segue disperazione e meschina irresponsabilità, come se la moralità fosse un grande mondo di vetro che con una sola azione si può frantumare irrimediabilmente. Ma allora la questione non mi preoccupava granché: allora ignoravo queste cose. Credevo di uccidere gli animali soltanto per ragioni estetiche e cercavo di eludere il grande interrogativo morale: se io, per la mia stessa natura fossi o non fossi dannato.

body

Avevo concepito la mia trasformazione in vampiro sotto due luci diverse. Da una parte si trattava semplicemente di una malia: Lestat mi aveva sopraffatto sul letto di morte. Ma dall'altra c'era la voglia di autodistruggermi, di dannarmi completamente. Questa era la porta aperta per cui era entrato Lestat.

L'istinto potente del vampiro per cui anche il più impercettibile cambiamento nell'espressione del volto umano ha l'evidenza di un gesto. Lestat aveva un tempismo sovrannaturale.

I saw my life as if I stood apart from it, the vanity, the self-serving, the constant fleeing from one petty annoyance after another, the lip service to God and the Virgin and a host of saints whose names filled my prayer books, none of whom made the slightest difference in a narrow, materialistic, and selfish existence. I saw my real gods … the gods of most men. Food, drink, and security in conformity. Cinders.

Lestat a brilliant pupil, a lover of books that had been burned. I knew only the Lestat who sneered at my library, called it a pile of dust, ridiculed relentlessly my reading, my meditations.

And who else would show us a particle of love, a particle of compassion or mercy? Who else, knowing us as we know each other, could do anything but destroy us? Yet we can love each other.

E Lestat, dov'era Lestat? Un fiammifero acceso nell'altra stanza, un'ombra che balza all'improvviso alla vita, quando luce e buio si animano dove non c'erano che tenebre.

She would live forever, as I would live forever. But wasn’t it so for mortal fathers? Their daughters live forever because these fathers die first.

that the sun would wake me gently later and I would have that rich, habitual vision of the ferns in the sunshine and the sunshine in the droplets of rain. I indulged that feeling. I half closed my eyes.

Lestat having a passion for Shakespeare which surprised me,

thrown at you in every drugstore, the public has no accurate memory of anything; every social problem is observed in relation to ‘norms’ which in fact never existed, people fancy themselves ‘deprived’ of luxuries and peace and quiet which in fact were never common to any people anywhere at all.

Stop looking at my buttons,' Lestat said. 'Go out there into the trees. Rid yourself of all the human waste in your body, and don't fall so madly in love with the night that you lose your way!

I wish you would play the music,' I said softly, unobtrusively, but as persuasively as possible. Sometimes this worked with Lestat. If I said something just right he found himself doing what I'd said. And now he did just that: with a little snarl, as if to say, 'You fool,' he began playing the music.

It was haunted; but real hauntings have nothing to do with ghosts finally; they have to do with the menace of memory;

...I wanted to enter the Louvre. I formed words to tell Armand this, to ask him if he might help me do what was necessary to have the Louvre till dawn. "He thought it a very simple request. He said only he wondered why I had waited so long.

Lestat had a musician friend in the Rue Dumaine. We had seen him at a recital in the home of a Madame LeClair, who lived there also, which was at that time an extremely fashionable street; and this Madame LeClair, with whom Lestat was also occasionally amusing himself, had found the musician a room in another mansion nearby, where Lestat visited him often.

And I knew the step on the stairs. I knew the step on the porch. It was Lestat.