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It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe
Age: 40 †
Born: 1809
Born: January 19
Died: 1849
Died: October 7
Author
Crime Writer
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lyricist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Poe
Edgar Poe
E. A. Poe
Ideas
Firsts
Haunted
First
Conceived
Entered
Impossible
Brain
Idea
Night

More quotes by Edgar Allan Poe

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In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Edgar Allan Poe
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I might refer at once, if necessary, to a hundred well authenticated instances. One of very remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the neighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and widely extended excitement.
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How much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'
Edgar Allan Poe
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Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors ... on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Happiness is not to be found in knowledge, but in the acquisition of knowledge
Edgar Allan Poe
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When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straight jacket.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly, I wished the morrow - vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Leonore - For the rare and radiant maiden who the angels name Lenore - Nameless here for evermore.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of sorrow
Edgar Allan Poe
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The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn,—not the material of my every-day existence--but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Sound-- That stealeth ever on the ear of him Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim, And sees the darkness coming as a cloud-- Is not its form--its voice--most palpable and loud?
Edgar Allan Poe
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If we examine a work of ordinary art, by means of a powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to nature will disappear - but the closest scrutiny of the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented.
Edgar Allan Poe
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There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.
Edgar Allan Poe
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And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The want of an international Copy-Right Law, by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain anything from the booksellers in the wayof remuneration for literary labor, has had the effect of forcing many of our very best writers into the service of the Magazines and Reviews.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The result of law inviolate is perfection–right–negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong, positive pain.
Edgar Allan Poe