Olivia > Olivia's Quotes

“He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness!...He confesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love. ... He has carried me off for love!...He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love!...But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps!...And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty...he offered it...he offered to show me the mysterious road...Only...only he rose too...and I was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the voice...for he sang. And I listened ... and stayed!...That night, we did not exchange another word. He sang me to sleep.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Does he love you so much?" "He would commit murder for me.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“I am dying of love. That is how it is...I loved her so! And I love her still....and am dying of love for her. - I kissed her alive...and she looked as beautiful as if she had been dead. ~ Erik”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Tonight I gave you my soul and I am dead.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Raoul," she said, "forget THE MAN'S VOICE and do not even remember its name... You must never try to fathom the mystery of THE MAN'S VOICE.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her."

He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark. Thrice over, he shouted:

"Humbug!...Humbug!...Humbug!”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“He loved her so much that it almost took his breath away.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“On this way, they reached the roof. Christine tripped over it as lightly as a swallow. Their eyes swept the empty space between the three domes and the triangular pediment. She breathed freely over Paris, the whole valley of which was seen at work below. She called Raoul to come quite close to her and they walked side by side along the zinc streets, in the leaden avenues; they looked at their twin shapes in the huge tanks, full of stagnant water, where, in the hot weather, the little boys of the ballet, a score or so, learn to swim and dive.

The shadow had followed behind them clinging to their steps; and the two children little suspected its presence when they at last sat down, trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo, who, with a great bronze gesture, lifted his huge lyre to the heart of a crimson sky.

It was a gorgeous spring evening. Clouds, which had just received their gossamer robe of gold and purple from the setting sun, drifted slowly by; and Christine said to Raoul:

“Soon we shall go farther and faster than the clouds, to the end of the world, and then you will leave me, Raoul. But, if, when the moment comes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you—well you must carry me off by force!”

“Are you afraid that you will change your mind, Christine?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head in an odd fashion. “He is a demon!” And she shivered and nestled in his arms with a moan. “I am afraid now of going back to live with him … in the ground!”

“What compels you to go back, Christine?”

“If I do not go back to him, terrible misfortunes may happen! … But I can’t do it, I can’t do it! … I know one ought to be sorry for people who live underground … But he is too horrible! And yet the time is at hand; I have only a day left; and, if I do not go, he will come and fetch me with his voice. And he will drag me with him, underground, and go on his knees before me, with his death’s head. And he will tell me that he loves me! And he will cry! Oh, those tears, Raoul, those tears in the two black eye-sockets of the death’s head! I can not see those tears flow again!”

She wrung her hands in anguish, while Raoul pressed her to his heart.

“No, no, you shall never again hear him tell you that he loves you! You shall not see his tears! Let us fly, Christine, let us fly at once!”

And he tried to drag her away, then and there. But she stopped him.

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “Not now! … It would be too cruel … let him hear me sing to-morrow evening … and then we will go away. You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room at midnight exactly. He will then be waiting for me in the dining-room by the lake … we shall be free and you shall take me away … You must promise me that, Raoul, even if I refuse; for I feel that, if I go back this time, I shall perhaps never return.”

And she gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh, behind her, replied.

“Didn’t you hear?”

Her teeth chattered.

“No,” said Raoul, “I heard nothing.”

- Chapter 12: Apollo’s Lyre”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“No, of course not.... Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it.... Picture it: a man who lives in a palace underground!" - Raoul”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“The shadow had followed behind them, clinging to their steps; and the two children little suspected its presence when they at last sat down, trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo, who, with a great bronze gesture, lifted his huge lyre to the heart of a crimson sky.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“He had a hear that could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar.”
― Gaston Laroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and I don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“I give you back your liberty, Christine, on condition that this ring is always on your finger. As long as you keep it, you will be protected against all danger and Erik will remain your friend. But woe to you if you ever part with it, for Erik will have his revenge!”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“... My mother, daroga, my poor, unhappy mother would never... let me kiss her... She used to run away... and throw me my mask!... Nor any other woman... ever, ever!... Ah, you can understand, my happiness was so great, I cried. And fell at her feet, crying... and I kissed her feet... her little feet... crying. You're crying, too, daroga... and she cried also... the angel cried!...”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Are people so unhappy when they love?”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Nobody could see the ghost in his box, but everybody could hear him.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give
you my lips! Take them, for the first time and the last.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Love me and you'll see! To be good, all I ever needed was to be loved. If you loved me, I'd be gentle as a lamb and you could do whatever you pleased with me.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“[He] prepared to forget his distress by flinging himself...into 'the vortex of pleasure.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“...the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose red cheeks
and the lily-white neck and shoulders who gave the explanation in a
trembling voice: “It’s the ghost!”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Christine, we will go from here together or die together. ~ Raoul”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“when a man", continued Raoul,"adopts such romantic methods to entice a young girl's affections. .."

"The man must be either a villain, or the girl a fool: is that it?”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I asked leave to look at it and read, ‘Don Juan Triumphant.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, 'I compose sometimes.’ I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.’ 'You must work at it as seldom as you can,’ I said. He replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a time.’ 'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?’ I asked, thinking to please him. 'You must never ask me that,’ he said, in a gloomy voice. 'I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven.’ Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano. He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.’ He spoke these last words as though he were flinging an insult at me.”

“What did you do?”

“I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words. We at once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us. I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed before. As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul at every note. Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowing cries. Erik’s black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice. He was Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to see beneath the mask. I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a movement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore away the mask. Oh, horror, horror, horror!”

Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her, while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now thrice moaned the cry:

“Horror! … Horror! … Horror!”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“He looked up in despair at the starry sky, he struck his burning chest with his fist; he loved and he was not loved!”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Destiny has chained you to me forever!”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“Tonight she's still wearing the gold ring, and you're not the one who gave it to her. Tonight she gave her soul again, but not to you.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“I sing only for you! Tonight I gave you my soul, and I'm dead!”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“May one ask at least to what darkness you are returning?… For what hell are you leaving, mysterious lady…or for what paradise?”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“I tried to speak, but he said coldly:

“Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up.” And he added, “The honor rests with mademoiselle … Mademoiselle has not touched the scorpion"—how deliberately he spoke!—"mademoiselle has not touched the grasshopper"—with that composure!—"but it is not too late to do the right thing. There, I open the caskets without a key, for I am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please. I open the little ebony caskets: mademoiselle, look at the little dears inside. Aren’t they pretty? If you turn the grasshopper, mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up. There is enough gun-powder under our feet to blow up a whole quarter of Paris. If you turn the scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned. Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer’s … you shall make them a present of their lives … For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn the scorpion … And merrily, merrily, we will be married!”

A pause; and then:

“If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, I shall turn the grasshopper … and the grasshopper, I tell you, HOPS JOLLY HIGH!”

- Chapter 25: The Scorpion or the Grasshopper: Which?”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers, saying he would like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away my hand and gave a cry. What I had touched was cold and, at the same time, bony; and I remembered that his hands smelt of death. ‘Oh, forgive me!’ he moaned. And he opened a door before me. ‘This is my bedroom, if you care to see it. It is rather curious.’ His manners, his words, his attitude gave me confidence and I went in without hesitation. I felt as if I were entering the room of a dead person. The walls were all hung with black, but, instead of the white trimmings that usually set off that funereal upholstery, there was an enormous stave of music with the notes of the DIES IRAE, many times repeated. In the middle of the room was a canopy, from which hung curtains of red brocaded stuff, and, under the canopy, an open coffin. 'That is where I sleep,’ said Erik. 'One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.’ The sight upset me so much that I turned away my head”

- Chapter 12: Apollo’s Lyre”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera