Anne Rice

give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed.

‘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 when I was aghast at this, he went into peals of laughter.

He shook his head. “That is, how would you say today…bullshit?”

But now I saw that his face was once again the way it had been when he’d said we would talk. He was listening to me. I was suddenly at a loss. I felt that gulf between us as painfully as ever.

My gestures were the caricature of human gestures compared to his.

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.

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.

And I felt a longing for him so strong that it took all my strength to contain it, merely to sit there gazing at him, fighting it.

‘I want you. I want you more than anything in the world.’

I am evil with infinite gradations and without guilt.