Author: Peter Straub

Cites

• Charles Dickens (2)
  • IN: Shadowland (1980) Fiction, Fantasy, American
    EPIGRAPH: Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.
    FROM: A Christmas Tree, (1986), Short story, UK
  • IN: If You Could See Me Now (1977) Fiction, Horror, American
    EPIGRAPH: ‘There’s a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder… But someone is always being murdered, and I didn’t read it.’
    FROM: David Copperfield, (1850), Novel, UK
• John Barth (1)
  • IN: Shadowland (1980) Fiction, Fantasy, American
    EPIGRAPH: The key to the treasure is the treasure.
    FROM: Chimera, (1972), Novel, US
• Emily Dickinson (2)
  • IN: Mr. X (1999) Fiction, Speculative Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I could not weigh myself—Myself— My size felt small—to me—I read your Chapter in the Atlantic— and experienced honor for you—I was sure you would not reject a confiding question— Is this—Sir—what you asked me to tell you?
    FROM: Emily Dickinson, letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, April 25, 1862, (1862), Letter, US
  • IN: In the Night Room (2004) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I wanted to write, and just tell you that me and my spirit were fighting this morning. It is’nt known generally, and you must’nt tell anybody.
    FROM: Letter to Emily Fowler, 1850, (1850), Letter, US
• Frank Morgan (1)
  • IN: Koko (1988) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I believe it is possible and even recommended to play the blues on everything.
    FROM: Frank Morgan, alto saxophonist, (None), NULL, US
• Carlos Fuentes (1)
  • IN: Mystery (1990) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I need, therefore I imagine.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, Mexico
• Peter Gay (1)
  • IN: Mystery (1990) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: All human society is constructed on complicity in a great crime.
    FROM: Sigmund FreudFreud: A Life for Our Time, (1988), Book, US/Germany
• Georges Bataille (1)
  • IN: The Throat (1993) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: A being can only be touched where it yields. For a woman, this is under her dress; and for a god it's on the throat of the animal being sacrificed.
    FROM: Guilty, (1944), Book, France
• Vladimir Nabokov (1)
  • IN: The Throat (1993) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window… Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.
    FROM: Speak, Memory, (1951), Book, Russia
• Peter Straub (1)
  • IN: Lost Boy Lost Girl (2003) Fiction, Speculative Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: What was at stake here, he thought, was the solidity of the world.
    FROM: Timothy Underhill, The Divided Man, (2003), Fictional, NULL
• Stephen Crane (1)
  • IN: Lost Boy Lost Girl (2003) Fiction, Speculative Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: There was set before me a mighty hill And long days I climbed Through regions of snow. When I had before me the summit-view, It seemed that my labours Had been to see gardens Lying at impossible distances.
    FROM: There Was Set Before Me a Mighty Hill, (1905), Poem, US
• Roger Scruton (1)
  • IN: In the Night Room (2004) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, UK
• R.D Jameson (1)
  • IN: Ghost Story (1979) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Ghosts are always hungry.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, NULL
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (1)
  • IN: Ghost Story (1979) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The chasm was merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere.
    FROM: The Marble Faun, (1859), Novel, US
• Richard Grossinger (1)
  • IN: If You Could See Me Now (1977) Fiction, Horror, American
    EPIGRAPH: You can walk away from anything but a strong smell: it haunts you, calls you back.
    FROM: Book of the Cranberry Islands, (1972), Book, US
• Laura Sims (1)
  • IN: Interior Darkness (2006) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I don't I don't deny (I wasn't there) but I'd had the dearest little dream.
    FROM: My God is This a Man, (2008), Poem, US
• Charles Wright (1)
  • IN: A Dark Matter (2010) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Is there an emptiness we all share? Before the end, I mean? Heaven and earth depend on this clarity, Heaven and earth, Under the gold doubloons of the fallen maple leaves, The underworld burrows in, Sick to death of the light.
    FROM: Littlefoot, 34, (2007), Poem, US

Cited by

• Stephen King (1)
  • IN: Danse Macabre (1981) Horror Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: “What was the worst thing you’ve ever done?” “I won’t tell you that, but I’ll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me . . . the most dreadful thing . . .”
    FROM: Ghost Story, (1967), Novel, US
• Peter Straub (1)
  • IN: Lost Boy Lost Girl (2003) Fiction, Speculative Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: What was at stake here, he thought, was the solidity of the world.
    FROM: Timothy Underhill, The Divided Man, (2003), Fictional, NULL