Vampire Chronicles 1: Interview with the vampire

Both were moral decisions. Both served a higher good, in the mind of the artist. The conflict lies between the morals of the artist and the morals of society, not between aesthetics and morality. But often this isn’t understood; and here comes the waste, the tragedy.

Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.

Lestat, in fact, had aroused in me feelings which I hadn't wished to confide in anyone, feelings I'd wished to forget, despite Claudia's death. Hatred had not been one of them.

it’s almost dawn. I should let you die. You will die, you know. The sun will destroy the blood I’ve given you, in every tissue, every vein. But you shouldn’t be feeling this fear at all. I think you’re like a man who loses an arm or a leg and keeps insisting that he can feel pain where the arm or leg used to be.’

realized that I was his complete superior and I had been sadly cheated in having him for a teacher.

I had several extremely intelligent slaves who might have done his job just as well a long time before, if I had recognized their intelligence and not feared their African appearance and manner.

And the boy sat motionless regarding him, astonished.

round oak table,

I had a strong sense of him then, the separate being that he was, the calm and collected creature with the straight auburn hair and the large, sometimes melancholy eyes, eyes that seemed often to be seeing nothing but their own thoughts.

That passivity in me has been the core of it all, the real evil.