Lestat Quotes

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 ~ Anne Rice

She understood the genre constraints, the decencies were supposed to be observing. The morally cosy vision allows the embrace of monstrosity only as a reaction to suffering or as an act of rage against the Almighty. Vampire interviewee Louis is in despair at his brother's death when he accepts Lestat's offer. Frankenstein's creature is driven to violence by the violence done to him. Even Lucifer's rebellion emerges from the agony of injured price. The message is clear: By all means become an abomination - but only while unhinged by grief or wrath. ~ Glen Duncan

She said further that this Geneva blood drinker was tragically in love with Lestat. ~ Anne Rice

But you love books, then," Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.
"Oh, yes," Lestat said. "Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive."
"What a strange thing to say at your age," she laughed.
"No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. "And books, they offer one hope - - that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved. ~ Anne Rice

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! ~ Anne Rice

Should we put out the light? And then put out the light. But once put out thy light, I cannot give it vital breath again. It needs must wither. ~ Anne Rice

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

Maybe we do go home, finally. ~ Anne Rice

Lestat: You're very anxious to be out of these rooms, aren't you? Why don't we simply get into bed together? I don't understand.
David: You're serious?
Lestat: Of course
David: You do realize, that this is an absolutely magnificent body, don't you? I mean you aren't insensible to the fact that you've been deposited in a ... a most impressive piece of young male flesh.
Lestat: I looked it over well before the switch, remember? Why is it you don't want to..
David: You've been with a woman, haven't you?
Lestat: I wish you hadn't read my mind. It's rude. Besides, what does that matter to you?
David: A woman you loved.
Lestat: I have always loved both men and women.
David: That's a slightly different use of the word 'love. ~ Anne Rice

You're a perfect devil, Lestat!" "That's what you are! You are the devil himself! ~ Anne Rice

Lestat,' she said, 'it is the larger scheme which means nothing.' … 'It is the small act which means all. Of course sickness and suffering will continue after I'm gone. But what's important is that I have done all I can. ~ Anne Rice

We live forever; but they don't come back. ~ Anne Rice

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 ~ Anne Rice

Don't go," he said, and his voice was so soft and imploring that it took my breath away. But I was already going. I barely heard him call out to me: "I need you. You're the only friend I have." How tragic those words! I wanted to say I was sorry, sorry for all of it. But it was too late now for that. And besides, I think he knew. All life seemed utterly unbearable to me now. ~ Anne Rice

I can't help being a gorgeous fiend. It's just the card I drew. ~ Anne Rice

Lestat might be the hero of the Vampire Chronicles, but this one, Louis, was the tragic heart. Yet he seemed at long last to have achieved a kind of peace with the ghastly realities of his existence and the existence of all those around him who outranked him in power but not necessarily in insight or wisdom. ~ Anne Rice

Kindly go to Hell!
(Lestat to Oncle Julien's ghost) ~ Anne Rice

A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note," he said, "but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor. ~ Anne Rice

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. ~ Anne Rice

I'd thought I knew what beauty was in women; but she'd surpassed all the language I had for it. ~ Anne Rice

Yet I saw crypts when I looked at him, and I heard the beat of kettledrums. I saw torchlit fields where I had never been, heard vague incantations, felt the heat of raging fires on my face. And they didn't come out of him, these visions. Rather I drew them out on my own.
Yet I never had Nicolas, mortal or immortal, been so alluring. Never had Gabrielle held me so in thrall.
Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this.
- Lestat de Lioncourt ~ Anne Rice

Information age. I guess I'm part of it, even if I can't remember how to use my iPhone from week to week, and have to learn how to send e-mails all over again every couple of years, and can't retain any profound technological knowledge about the computers I sometimes use. ~ Anne Rice

I kept glancing at him and away from him, as if his green eyes were hurting me. In modern parlance he was a laser beam. Deadly and delicate he seemed. His victims had always loved him.
And I had always loved him, hadn't I, no matter what happened, and how strong could love grow if you had eternity to nourish it, and it took only these few moments in time to renew its momentum, its heat?
-Lestat ~ Anne Rice

I was still sitting there, too unsure of myself to say anything, when Nicolas kissed me.
'Let's go to bed,' he said softly. ~ Anne Rice

I'm a little sadder for all of it, and a little meaner and a little more conscientious as well. ~ Anne Rice

Drink from me and live forever.
Lestat de Lioncourt ~ Anne Rice

He stood in the doorway, holding the back of his own arms. And I knew what I felt. It was a monstrous intimacy with another being, an intimacy that made even the rapt moments of life seem dim and under control. Never, never in all my existance had I been threateened with an intimacy quite like this. ~ Anne Rice

To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost."
So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions."
An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes. ~ Anne Rice

Oh, I think we should name your penis the Vampire Lestat. ~ Darynda Jones

One will hate you for taking his life, another will run to excesses that you scorn. A third will emerge mad and raving, another a monster you cannot control. One will be jealous of your superiority, another shut you out ... And the veil will always come down between you Make a legion, you will be, always and forever alone! ~ Anne Rice

Evil is a point of view ... God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately ... for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves.
God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are none so like him as ourselves. ~ Anne Rice

Alas, my being the James Bond of vampires isn't the whole issue. Vanity must wait. ~ Anne Rice

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! ~ Anne Rice

Every time I stumbled and fell, something in me hardened, became worse.
By the time I reached the castle gates; I think I was not Lestat. I was someone else altogether. ~ Anne Rice

The sky was growing dangerously light when I left Lestat and made my way to the secret place, below an abandoned building where I kept the iron coffin in which I lie.
This is no unusual configuration among our kind-the sad old building, my title to it, or the cellar room cut off from the world above by iron doors no mortal could independently seek to lift. ~ Anne Rice

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 ~ Anne Rice

The Vampire Lestat here. ~ Anne Rice

Amazing what the British do with language; the nuances of politeness. The world's great diplomats, surely. ~ Anne Rice

I stumble through a carnival of horrors ~ Anne Rice

I wanted to kiss her, she was beautiful again to me. But I dared not risk it. It wasn't only that I would have frightened her, it was that the desire to kill her was almost overpowering. Some fierce purely male instinct in me wanted to claim her now simply because I had claimed her in another way before. ~ Anne Rice

And there were moments in this fetid little paradise when I prayed that in spite of everything I was capable of, I was somehow kin to every mortal. Maybe I was not the exotic outcast that I imagined, but merely the dim magnification of every human soul. Old truths and ancient magic, revolution and invention, all conspire to distract us from the passion that in one way or another defeats us all. And weary finally of this complexity, we dream of that long-ago time when each kiss was the pefect consummation of desire. What can we do but reach for the embrace that must now contain both heaven and hell: our doom again and again and agian. ~ Anne Rice

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. ~ Anne Rice

Claudia, you've been a very very naughty little girl. ~ Anne Rice

Lestat: Toughen up baby. I'm looking for the eternal scum. ~ Anne Rice

Here's my love, not in little droplets, but from the very river of my being. It reaches all the way down to the roots of my being, tangling my heart in its burning mesh. For you. Drink deep. ~ Anne Rice

But what endures is what has always mattered: love - that we love one another as surely as we are alive. And if there is any hope for us to ever really be good - that hope will be realized through love. ~ Anne Rice

God is a creative force, Lestat. And so are we. He told Adam, 'Increase and multiply.' That's what the first organic cells did, Lestat, increased and multiplied. Not merely changed shape but replicated themselves. God is a creative force. He made the whole universe out of Himself through cell division. That's why the devils are so full of envy-the bad angels, I mean. They are [i]not[/i] creative creatures; they have no bodies, no cells, they're spirit. And I suspect it wasn't envy so much as a form of suspicion-that God was making a mistake in making another engine of creativity in Adam, so like Himself. I mean the angels probably felt the physical universe was bad enough, with all the replicating cells, but thinking, talking beings who could increase and multiply? They were probably outraged by the whole experiment. That was their sin."

"So you're saying God isn't pure spirit."

"That's right. God has a body. Always did. The secret of cell-dividing life lies within God. And all living cells have a tiny part of God's spirit in them, Lestat, that's the missing piece as to what makes life happen in the first place, what separates it from nonlife. It's exactly like your vampiric genesis. You told us that the spirit of Amel-the evil entity-infused the bodies of all the vampires...Well, men share in the spirit of God in the same way. ~ Anne Rice

My father who art in hell, Lestat be your name. ~ Anne Rice

The night was waiting for me as always. And my thirst could wait no longer. I stood for a moment, head thrown back, eyes closed, and mouth open, feeling that thirst, and wanting to roar like a hungry beast. Yes, blood again when there is nothing else. When the world seems in all its beauty to be empty and heartless and I myself am utterly lost. Give me my old friend, death, and the blood that rushes with it. The Vampire Lestat is here, and he thirsts, and tonight of all nights, he will not be denied. ~ Anne Rice

Lestat: I despise you! I ought to destroy you-finish what I started when I made you. Turn you into ashes and sift them through my hands. You know that I could do it! Like that! Like the snap of mortal fingers, I could do it. Burn you as I burnt your little house. And nothing could save you, nothing at all. ~ Anne Rice

History is a litany of injustice, no one denies it. But when has a simple solution ever been anything but evil? Only in complexity do we find answers. Through complexity men struggle towards fairness; it is slow and clumsy, but it's the only way. Simplicity demands too great a sacrifice. It always has. - Lestat ~ Anne Rice

I've lived all these years among those who create nothing and change nothing,' I said. 'Actors and musicians-they're saints to me. ~ Anne Rice

And books, they offer one hope
that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved. ~ Anne Rice

I was the vampire Lestat again. I was back in action. New Orleans was once again my hunting ground. ~ Anne Rice

You have to pass away from what failed you into what can sustain you. Otherwise - there is no hope. ~ Anne Rice

The most difficult novel I have had to write in terms of just getting it done was The Vampire Lestat. It took a year to write. ~ Anne Rice

The truth is, I hate not being the first person narrator all the way through! To paraphrase David Copperfield, I don't know whether I'm the hero or the victim of this tale. But either way, shouldn't I dominate it? ~ Anne Rice

I am the Vampire Lestat. I'm immortal more or less. The light of the sun, the sustained heat of an intense fire-these things might destroy me. But then again, they might not. ~ Anne Rice

The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her. ~ Anne Rice

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

I had to have him, had to. Just the way I had to have everything I wanted; or had to do everything I'd ever wanted to do. ~ Anne Rice

Immortality seems like a good idea, until you realise you're going to spend it alone ~ Lestat De Lioncourt

Actors and actresses make magic,' I said. 'They make things happen on the stage; they invent; they create. ~ Anne Rice

You're the hunter, the warrior. You're stronger than anyone else here, that's your tragedy. ~ Anne Rice

Malady of mortality ~ Anne Rice

I am the Vampire Lestat, and nothing ... not even this mortal body ... is going to defeat me. ~ Anne Rice

Finally those you love are simply ... those you love. ~ Anne Rice

Traitor," said Amel. "Slut." I tried to conceal my smile. I just love being called a slut. I don't know why. I just do. ~ Anne Rice

Pamper the mad man. ~ Anne Rice

ahhh louie still whining after all these years ~ Lestat

Save your kisses for the world, little one.
- Magnus to Lestat before going into the fire. ~ Anne Rice

Many times I've called for Marius, but there was no answer. Just the endless procession of days, months, years ... My teacher left me to my darkest lesson, that in the end, we are alone, and there is nothing but the cold, dark wasteland of eternity. ~ Stuart Townsend

All the old poetry makes sense when you look at one whom you have loved. ~ Anne Rice

And this notion of the meaninglessness of our lives here began to enflame us.
I took up the theme again that music and acting were good because they drove back chaos. Chaos was the meaninglessness of day-to-day life, and if we were to die now, our lives would have been nothing but meaninglessness. ~ Anne Rice

I am not times fool, nor a god hardened by the millennia; I am not the trickster in the black cape nor the sorrowful wanderer. I have a conscience. I know right from wrong I know what I do and yes, I do it. I am the Vampire Lestat. That's your answer do with it as you will. ~ Anne Rice

Never in all this time since you first came to me, never once have I ever looked into your eyes or heard your voice, or even thought of you, without feeling pain. It's the pain connected to loving you ,to realizing my limits, and what I'll never have. Do you remmeber feeling my heartbeat? You'll never feel such a rhythm as you will with me. I'm your Savage Garden, and yet so tame and soft and safe! ~ Anne Rice

A dreadful suspicion was coming over me. Hadn't my mortal life been nothing but abysmal struggle and trivia and fear? Wasn't that the way it was for most mortals? Wasn't that the message of a score of modern writers and poets - that we wasted our lives in foolish preoccupation? Wasn't this all a miserable cliche? ~ Anne Rice

You're the mad one,' I said. 'If you could see yourself, hear your own voice, your music - which of course you play for yourself - you wouldn't see darkness, Nicki. You'd see an illumination that is all your own. Sombre, yes, but light and beauty come together in you in a thousand different patterns. ~ Anne Rice