Mary Shelley — "What is there in our nature that is forever urging us on towards pain and misery…"

"My imagination was always my best friend."

"If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion."

"The human mind is a wonderful thing; it can create and destroy, it can love and hate."

"Do you mark my words; I have learned the language of despair: I have it all by heart, for I am Despair; and a strange being am I, joyous, triumphant Despair…."

"How dreadful it is, to emerge from the oblivion of slumber, and to receive as a good morrow the mute wailing of one's own hapless heart - to return from the land of deceptive dreams to the heavy knowl…"