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...”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“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.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“Villains!' I shrieked. 'Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“True! - nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.I heard many things in hell.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“TRUE! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“I smiled,—for what had I to fear?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded –with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it –oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly –very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! –would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously –oh, so cautiously –cautiously (for the hinges creaked) –I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. 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. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees – very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

“And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“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?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“Men usually grow base by degrees.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“the deductions are the sole proper ones, and that the suspicion arises inevitably from them as the single result.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“where breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, all the wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science?”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories

“But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories