Mary Shelley quotes:

And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion.

To bestow on your fellow men is a Godlike attribute--So indeed it is and as such not one fit for mortality;--the giver, like Adam and Prometheus, must pay the penalty of rising above his nature by being the martyr of his own excellence."

Like one who, on a lonely road, Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. - Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner.

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.

I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.

I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures as no language can describe

Ah! it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.

Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock." - Frankenstein p115

I required kindness and sympathy, but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it.

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.

It maybe judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.

...we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves - such a friend ought to be - do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures."

These are my enticements, and they are sufficent to conquer all fear and danger or death... with the induction of the joy of a child feels when embarks a little boat."

Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavor to resign myself cheerfully to death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world.

I'm a creature of fine sensations

I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.

When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations.

Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade.

The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.

I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave

It may...be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.

One as deformed and horrible as myself, could not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects... with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being...

A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.

The spirit of elder days found a dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps.

nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose

My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.

Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.

My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.

But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be - a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.

A king is always a king - and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converse.

It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with.