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Macabre Quotes

Browse 47 quotes about Macabre.

Macabre Quotes

“Oh, Lilias,” Uncle James groaned. “For heaven’s sake, why couldn’t you have drawn a flower or something?” He glanced at me and said, “I’m sorry – she’s going through a bit of a macabre phase at the moment. I suppose all children do at some point, don’t they?” I nodded, but couldn’t remember a time when I’d ever gone around drawing grisly murder scenes and presenting them to people as gifts.”

ChildrenHorrorMurderAwkwardLolNoMacabreDrawingsGruesome
Book:Frozen Charlotte
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“William sees it all happen again. The pain is not in the event. The subjection to it and his powerless state each time is where his anguish lies. He is unable to influence the situation, despite his desire. He sees the nest outside his house. He sees the baby bird that fell. The mother bird cries frantically for her lost chick. William knows as he approaches the chick that if he touches it his scent will linger, and the mother will reject it. Circling around the fallen creature William hopes it will flee from him, back toward the tree from which it had fallen. His presence only intensifies the creature’s fear. It speeds to his left, heading for the street. Again William tries to flank the bird, but it is too frightened to return to the nest. The chick’s mother wails vainly. William walks into the street trying to herd the bird to safety. The stop light a block away has just turned green. The driver accelerates. William moves from the car’s path and it runs over the bird. The momentum from its wake lifts the bird to the underside of the car, breaking its neck, but not killing it. William watches the bird roll helplessly. It is silent for a second, before it begins to whimper. Its contorted head dangles limply from its body. The noise is tragic. The bird’s mother hears the chick’s pain, but nothing can be done. She laments. A second speeder crushes the chick, leaving only a wet feathered spot in the street. As the cars continue to pass, only one bird is heard. A mother’s grief falls deafly on an unconcerned world.”

HorrorMourningMacabre
Book:Where The Dead Fear to Tread
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“In the course of my life I have had pre-pubescent ballerinas; emaciated duchesses, dolorous and forever tired, melomaniac and morphine-sodden; bankers' wives with eyes hollower than those of suburban streetwalkers; music-hall chorus girls who tip creosote into their Roederer when getting drunk... I have even had the awkward androgynes, the unsexed dishes of the day of the *tables d'hote* of Montmartre. Like any vulgar follower of fashion, like any member of the herd, I have made love to bony and improbably slender little girls, frightened and macabre, spiced with carbolic and peppered with chlorotic make-up. Like an imbecile, I have believed in the mouths of prey and sacrificial victims. Like a simpleton, I have believed in the large lewd eyes of a ragged heap of sickly little creatures: alcoholic and cynical shop girls and whores. The profundity of their eyes and the mystery of their mouths... the jewellers of some and the manicurists of others furnish them with *eaux de toilette*, with soaps and rouges. And Fanny the etheromaniac, rising every morning for a measured dose of cola and coca, does not put ether only on her handkerchief. It is all fakery and self-advertisement - *truquage and battage*, as their vile argot has it. Their phosphorescent rottenness, their emaciated fervour, their Lesbian blight, their shop-sign vices set up to arouse their clients, to excite the perversity of young and old men alike in the sickness of perverse tastes! All of it can sparkle and catch fire only at the hour when the gas is lit in the corridors of the music-halls and the crude nickel-plated decor of the bars. Beneath the cerise three-ply collars of the night-prowlers, as beneath the bulging silks of the cyclist, the whole seductive display of passionate pallor, of knowing depravity, of exhausted and sensual anaemia - all the charm of spicy flowers celebrated in the writings of Paul Bourget and Maurice Barres - is nothing but a role carefully learned and rehearsed a hundred times over. It is a chapter of the MANCHON DE FRANCINE read over and over again, swotted up and acted out by ingenious barnstormers, fully conscious of the squalid salacity of the male of the species, and knowledgeable in the means of starting up the broken-down engines of their customers. To think that I also have loved these maleficent and sick little beasts, these fake Primaveras, these discounted Jocondes, the whole hundred-franc stock-in-trade of Leonardos and Botticellis from the workshops of painters and the drinking-dens of aesthetes, these flowers mounted on a brass thread in Montparnasse and Levallois-Perret! And the odious and tiresome travesty - the corsetted torso slapped on top of heron's legs, painful to behold, the ugly features primed by boulevard boxes, the fake Dresden of Nina Grandiere retouched from a medicine bottle, complaining and spectral at the same time - of Mademoiselle Guilbert and her long black gloves!... Have I now had enough of the horror of this nightmare! How have I been able to tolerate it for so long? The fact is that I was then ignorant even of the nature of my sickness. It was latent in me, like a fire smouldering beneath the ashes. I have cherished it since... perhaps since early childhood, for it must always have been in me, although I did not know it!”

SexHorrorWomanNightmareRottenCocaineLesbianDecadenceDepravityVicePerversityAlcoholicMacabreMorphineDecadentDecadentsEtherMontmartreFervourPallorStreet WalkersAndrogyneAndrogynesChorus GirlsLevallois PerretMaurice BarresPaul Bourget
Book:Monsieur de Phocas
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“Violet nightshade Meaning: Fascination, witchcraft Solanum brownii | New South Wales A member of the nightshade family, often toxic. Commonly associated with death and ghosts in folklore. Latin name comes from 'solamen' meaning to quieten or comfort, and refers to the narcotic properties of some species. Used as food plants by the larvae of some butterflies and moths.”

MacabreDeadlyGenus SpeciesMeaning Of FlowersNightshadeDark Beauty
Book:The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
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“Les morts deviennent des étoiles. C'est pourquoi, la nuit où tu mourras, le ciel sera beau. C'est un peu ce que je souhaite. Je t'aime. Et j'aime beaucoup le fait que tu mourras. Qu'un jour, tu ne seras plus qu'os blanchis, Qu'un jour, tu ne seras plus que cendres blanches. Une étoile blanche. Et maintenant, déteste-moi, vas-y ! (Poème du télescope traduit dans ''Le Japon des femmes - Du IIe siècle à nos jours'')”

AmourMortPoésieMacabreéToilesPoésie Japonaise
Book:死んでしまう系のぼくらに
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“The skeleton key unlocks the mind and swings open the door of imagination. A far better place than here A much safer place than there The quintessential somewhere The mystical nowhere The enigmatic anywhere My gift to you - the key to everywhere. The mortal will find itself lost while the soul always knows the way it is grateful for the darkness and celebrates the day I can give you peace my peace I give you... but I cannot be your savior or your god - I cannot be the light along your path - I can only give you the lamp and point the way. The blind will see... the deaf will hear... but those who choose reason will never understand. Woe to the ones who think they know the answers they will cease to ask the questions that may be their own salvation. We possess the knowledge of the Universe from conception. Once born we are taught to forget. If we cannot look out at our world and see our children's vision then we are truly blind we are unable to lead them to paradise. "Even people who are in the dark search for their shadows. Shadows exist only if there is light. We will never find total darkness - not even in death... ...and we always cast a shadow no matter how overcast our skies become. You are never alone." Do not listen to the voice that shouts to you from behind desks behind podiums behind altars. Do not pay attention to the orators and the opportunists. Do not be distracted by the promises made behind masks. Listen to the quiet. Listen to the whispers as they gently guide you through the assaults of man's absurdities. Listen to the gentle breathing of your mother and lay your head to rest in her peace and in her warm embrace and understand that truth and power lie within you. Breathe silence. The free bird will always return to the cage sooner or later to seek food and water and the loving hand of it's caretaker.”

StorytellerMoroseMacabreMystic VersesBen PetersBlack Dog HatDark AmbientM Teresa ClaytonMystic WritingPiratas De DiosRoger HodgeVia SleepWork At Night
Author:M. Teresa Clayton
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“Against a set of desolate scenery, amid spectral crags and livid mountains of ash, beneath the funereal daylight of slopes illuminated in blue, she personified the spirit of the witches' sabbat. Morbid and voluptuous, sometimes with extenuated grace and infinite lassitude, she seemed to carry the burden of a criminal beauty, a beauty charged with all the sins cf the multitude. She fell again and again upon her pliant legs, and as she outlined the symbolic gestures of her two beautiful dead arms she seemed to be towing them behind her. Then, the vertigo of the abyss took hold of her again, and like one possessed she stood on point, holding herself fully erect from top to toe, like a spike of flesh and shadows. Her arms, weighed down just a few moments earlier, became menacing, demoniac, and audacious. Twisting like a screw, she whirled around, like a winnowing-machine - no, like a great lily stirred by a storm-wind. Clownish and macabre, a nacreous gleam showed between her lips... oh, that cruel and sardonic smile, and the two deep pools of her terrible eyes! Ize Kranile!”

DanceDecadenceCruelMacabreSardonic
Book:Monsieur de Phocas
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“The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from every-day life. Relatively few are free enough from the spell of the daily routine to respond to rappings from outside, and tales of ordinary feelings and events, or of common sentimental distortions of such feelings and events, will always take first place in the taste of the majority; rightly, perhaps, since of course these ordinary matters make up the greater part of human experience.”

FirstsHumansMatterEnoughFeelingsCertainCoursesImaginationCommonGreaterEventsReaderTasteDemandDegreesOrdinaryCapacityMajorityRapTalesAppealsRoutineSpellsSentimentalHuman ExperienceDetachmentDistortionDay LifeDaily RoutinesMacabre
Book:H.P. Lovecraft: The Ultimate Collection (160 Works Including Early Writings, Fiction, Collaborations, Poetry, Essays & Bonus Audiobook Links)
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“It is the night-black Massachusetts legendry which packs the really macabre "kick". Here is material for a really profound study in group-neuroticism; for certainly, no one can deny the existence of a profoundly morbid streak in the Puritan imagination.”

NightBlackImaginationExistenceStudyGroupsMaterialsProfoundDenyKicksPacksStreaksPuritanMorbidMassachusettsMacabre
Book:Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft
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“Sometimes I am a collector of data, and only a collector, and am likely to be gross and miserly, piling up notes, pleased with merely numerically adding to my stores. Other times I have joys, when unexpectedly coming upon an outrageous story that may not be altogether a lie, or upon a macabre little thing that may make some reviewer of my more or less good works mad. But always there is present a feeling of unexplained relations of events that I note, and it is this far-away, haunting, or often taunting, awareness, or suspicion, that keeps me piling on.”

MayLittlesSometimesStoriesFeelingsJoyLyingAwarenessEventsRelationMadNotesStoresDataLittle ThingsFar AwaySuspicionGood WorkGrossHauntingOutrageousCollectorsReviewersTauntingUnexplainedMacabre
Book:Wild Talents
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“Chad Michael Ward is a master of the storytelling craft. His imagery, both still and moving, reaches deep into the darkest corners of the mind, combining the macabre and the sensuous Revealing humanity's secret daydream atrocities. CMW taps into our most excitable of emotions with a blend of fear and human sexuality. Like an erotic car accident we can not look away from.”

MindHumansLooksStillsMovingHumanitySecretEmotionCarMastersCornersSexualityAccidentsStorytellingCraftsCan NotEroticRevealingImageryDaydreamingAtrocitiesCombiningSensuousCar AccidentMacabreChad
Author:Dave Navarro
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“Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny, but working with him, I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre, he could be a very funny man to work with, always telling jokes and holding court. Of course, when I worked with Charlie he was getting older.”

MenFunnyFilmCoursesFoundStrangeSeriousJokesCourtGetting OlderCharlieAmusingHitchcockChaplinFunny MenMacabreSerious Man
Author:Tippi Hedren
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“What I like about the Carpenter take on The Thing is the fact that it just has so much suspense. It seemed like a different story, with the horror elements. Those films that really speak to the primal fear that we, as human beings, have about the unknown have always intrigued me. That's the really scary thing, not the slasher, macabre movies.”

HumansDifferentFactsStoriesFilmSpeakHuman BeingsHorrorElementsScarySuspensePrimalIntriguedCarpenterScary ThingsReally ScaryMacabrePrimal Fear
Author:Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
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“We loved with a love that was more than love.”

LovePoetryMarriageSweetAnd LoveTrue LoveWeddingLost LoveReal LoveRomantic LoveValentineOur LoveValentine's DayBeing In LoveGreat LoveRomanticismBest LoveBeing LovedCheesyFamous LoveTime LoveTrue Love IsMost RomanticMarriage LoveTime And LoveCrazy LoveValentine LoveVery RomanticBeautiful LoveBest Ever LoveWedding MarriageRomantic Valentines DayMy True LoveSt ValentineWeddings And MarriageWeddings And LoveBe My ValentineSweet ValentineAmazing LoveLoving LoveMacabreRomantic WeddingLiterary LoveLove LiteratureValentines Day SpecialUltimate LoveLyric PoetryRomantic MarriageSad Valentines DayUnique Valentines DayShort And Sweet LoveValentine SpecialRomantic And PassionateRomantic PassionateNeeded LoveRomantic PassionTouching Love
Author:Edgar Allan Poe
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“Still, I look down, and the grass is so green, I cannot understand how it does not wither and die with sorrow. But against the emerald carpet, the warriors make war, and it is like a dance, almost beautiful, always macabre. The noise brings me back, the fearsome noise of swords striking swords, a metallic clanging that rings in my ears, echoing and echoing the fearsome din of men screaming and crying as they meet the sharp ends of blades.”

MenLooksDoeStillsWarEndsBeautifulDiesCrySorrowEarsDown AndGreenRingsNoiseWarriorGrassCarpetBladesEmeraldsMetallicMacabre
Author:Lisa Ann Sandell
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“The Metropolitan Museum of Art some time ago held a display of contemporary art at which $52,000 was awarded to American sculptors, painters, and artists in allied fields. The award for the best painting went to the canvas of an Illinois artist. It was described as "a macabre, detailed work showing a closed door bearing a funeral wreath." Equally striking was the work's title: "That which I should have done, I did not do."”

ShouldArtDoneArtistTimeWorkDoorsFieldsPaintingShould HaveContemporaryPainterTitlesAwardsMuseumsFuneralDisplayCanvasSculptorsClosed DoorsIllinoisContemporary ArtWreathsMetropolitanMacabreMetropolitan Museum Of Art
Author:James Keller
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“I try to offset any tendency towards the macabre with humour. As I see it, this is a typically English form of humour. It's a piece with such jokes as the one about the man who was being led to the gallows to be hanged. He looked at the trap door in the gallows, which was flimsily constructed, and he asked in some alarm, 'I say, is that thing safe?”

MenTryingHumorFormPiecesDoorsHumourHe ManSafeJokesTendenciesTrapsAlarmsGallowsMacabre
Author:Alfred Hitchcock
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