Quotes from Mary Shelley

Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?

I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.

What may not be expected in a country of eternal light

Perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who have it, appear angelic

It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being...

A miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits.

When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?

I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight.

The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life.

Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer, but the hangman who would gain his fee?

Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?

It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.

You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. - Victor Frankenstein.

Is there such a feeling as love at first sight? And if there be, in what does its nature differ from love founded in long observation and slow growth? Perhaps its effects are not so permanent; but they are, while they last, as violent and intense.

I confess that neither the structure of language, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

As a child I scribbled; and my favorite pastime during the hours given me for recreation was to 'write stories'. Still, I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air – the indulging in waking dreams – the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents.

I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations. Have you thought of a story? I was asked every morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative

Everything must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. The Hindus give the world an elephant to support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise.

I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.

When tenderness softened her heart, and the sublime feeling of universal love penetrated her, she found no voice that replied so well to hers as the gentle singing of the pines under the air of noon, and the soft murmurs of the breeze that scattered her hair and freshened her cheek, and the dashing of the waters that has no beginning or end.

Enter the house of mourning, my friend, but with kindness and affection for those who love you, and not with hatred for your enemies.

On being charged with the fact, the poor girl confirmed the suspicion in a grat measure by her extreme confusion of manner.