The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings Quotes

“Now this is the point. You fancy me a mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded...”

“True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.”

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

“I smiled,—for what had I to fear?”

“Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?”

“But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul”

“But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee.”

“I smiled—for what had I to fear?”

“And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.”

“I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.”

“And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it – oh so gently!”

“All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim.”

“And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel – although he neither saw nor heard – to feel the presence of my head within the room.”

“A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine.”

“It was a low, dull, quick sound – much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.”

“And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?”

″ Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think.”

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”

“True! - nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”