Gothic Fiction Quotes

“I envy people that know love. That have someone who takes them as they are.”
― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey

“One hand was behind his back, and he held it out, presenting a bouquet of white and smoky purple lilies.

“They’re straight from the underworld, by the way. They are everlasting. They won’t die.”
― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey

“At its heart, Gothic Fiction is the introvert's "Hero's Journey" where heroes and heroines must navigate the uncharted territory of the mind in order to solve the mystery of their life's adventure.”
― Barrymore Tebbs

“No, I will not join your Civil War reenactment troupe.”
― Aaron A. A. Smith, Siren's Lament and Other Stories

“For the sake of your bright eyes, Jem Merlyn.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“Lady Dunreath, in the meantime, suffered torture; after she had seen Malvina turned from the abbey, she returned to her apartment; it was furnished with the most luxurious elegance, yet she could not rest within it. Conscience already told her, if Malvina died, she must consider herself her murderer: her pale and woe-worn image seemed still before her: a cold terror oppressed her heart, which the terrors of the night augmented. The tempest shook the battlements of the abbey; and the wind howled through the galleries, like the moan of some wandering spirit of the pile, bewailing the fate of one of its fairest daughters.”
― Regina Maria Roche, The Children of the Abbey

“Even before the eyes of eternity — everything remains in our hands.”
― Ruslana Pidsadiuk, Before the Eyes of Eternity

“...Leaning on her maid, she stole through the winding galleries, and lightly descending the stairs, entered the long hall, which terminated in a dark arched passage that opened into the chapel. This was a wild and gloomy structure: beneath it were the vaults which contained the ancestors of the earl of Dunreath, whose deeds and titles were enumerated on gothic monuments: their dust-covered banners waving around in sullen dignity to the rude gale, which found admittance through the broken windows. The light which the maid held produced deep shadows, that heightened the solemnity of the place.”
― Regina Maria Roche, The Children of the Abbey

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

“(?)
“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Immortality is not a gift. It is the longest form of punishment.”
― P.E.N. Bortolotti

“Good-night, then, sir," said I, departing.

He seemed surprised—very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go.

"What!" he exclaimed, "are you quitting me already, and in that way?"

"You said I might go, sir."

"But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life!—snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

“Then there was darkness. The light from the oil lamp had gone off. She wasn't in the tub anymore. She had been wrapped in a thin cloth that impeded her movement, but she managed to pull it apart, to slide it away, and it slipped from her shoulders as neatly as the membrane she'd observed.

Wood. She could smell damp earth and wood, and when she raised a hand her knuckles hit hard surface and a splinter cut her skin.

Coffin. It was a coffin. The cloth was a shroud.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic

“An odd sensation rushed through her body. Her head grew light, and a peculiar pleasure imbued her mind. In the demon’s eyes a promise was held. Her days had been filled with misfortune; enduring adversity had made her tired. The lure was too enticing, and she followed. - Ch 2 The Darkness of Judith”
― Helen Mihajlovic

“This glass was a gift from the Watchers, Faustine. Real angels sent from heaven. A long time ago one of them fell in love with a mortal, and this glass was their first blessing. Glass that sings.

-Seraphine, Singing For Starblood”
― Emma lou , Singing For Starblood

“The library at Hellebore, however, was different. Appendage to the main campus, it acted only in the faculty's interest, which seemed to revolve exclusively around fucking us students over.”
― Cassandra Khaw, The Library at Hellebore

“The Basement Morgue by Stewart Stafford

A reluctant errand to a basement morgue,
No mortal knew what things lurked there,
The elevator shuddered to a halt, opening,
To a scattered boneyard of patient beds.

Totem tchotchkes of a broken system,
Dead corridors stretched left and right,
A charged cold-sweat silence hung,
As a flaccid desk stethoscope rattled.

Buried my nose in my clipboard;
Had to find their machine - now!
A gurney wheeled itself past me,
Disappearing into an anteroom.

A hanging skeleton lunged at me—
Spindly fingers choked me into blackness.
Rousing to bright lights, blinding me;
Icy steel drawers swallowed my screams.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“A dark Southern Gothic tale of forbidden desire and supernatural vengeance. Within the cursed halls of Chesterson Manor, love turns deadly, and ghosts of the past hunger for redemption.”
― Thomas Miller, The Deadly Lust Of Chesterson Manor : A Story Of Lust Love And Death

“Silence did not mean safety. It only meant no one was listening.”
― Kimberly K. Taylor

“People starve in different ways, dear. Just as the kid binges on food, people will binge on kindness.”
— Radiel, Abaddon”
― Paulina Allende Miranda, Abaddon

“It was never a story.
Only a collection of remains.”
― Dario Fero, For ever and a day: The shadow side of immortality

“That night, I made a new rule for myself: never to take freedom away from others.”
― Ruslana Pidsadiuk, Before the Eyes of Eternity

“I see her face. Her face is different, but I know it’s her. And she looks at me with the same adoration, the same desire, the same delight. I mean, I don’t see her literally in front of me. Her image, it just comes, like a photograph in my mind. Like a recollection. Like a memory I can’t remember having stored.
And I know her name. No-one says it in my dream and yet I just awoke with it the other day. I just knew it and it stayed in my brain. I tried to say it in my dream. I tried to talk to her, but I don’t have the conscious power to do that. It’s like I’m trapped, waiting until we take our last breath. And so, I just re-live our death each night. Our death. Mine and Avarrah’s.”
― Emmerson Winter, Tethered to the Past: A haunting Gothic timeslip novel of reincarnation, memory, and myth

“The most humiliating thing isn't being used. It's catching yourself being grateful for the parts of it that felt like attention.”
― Jahaira Telles, Chasing A Circus

“Trust is what is asked for when lovers lie. They take that trust and think you a fool. I ain’t trusting nobody,” she said.”
― I.G. Mathews, We Be Drowned Now and Then

“The dead did not always stay buried. Sometimes they came back in old letters, in family trees, in names scratched from ledgers by hands that should have rotted centuries ago.”
― Erika Killen, The Hollow Heir: Book two of The Blood Archivist Series

“She trusted the house when it creaked, complained, rearranged furniture, opened doors it had no business opening, dropped books onto people it considered insufficiently attentive, and breathed through the walls at inappropriate hours. Noise, with Mercy Row, meant communication. Silence meant strategy.”
― Erika Killen, The Root Unbound: Book 5 of The Blood Archivist Series

“Reagan tucked herself closer against him. His arms closed around her. For once, the records stayed closed, the dead stayed quiet, and the blood did not command. It answered only to the living. And Reagan, foolishly, beautifully, let herself believe morning would be kind.”
― Erika Killen

“Folklore is ancient, words are real, and the supernatural is real.”
― DJ Nuttall