"Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night."
"I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears... and she did not run away!...and she did not die!... She remained alive, weeping over me, weeping with me. We cried together! I have tasted all the hapiness the world can offer."
"I am not really wicked. Love me, and you will see!"
"Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost..."
"Look!You want to see? See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like? Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a good-looking fellow, eh?...When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me.She loves me forever! I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!...Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant!"
"All I wanted was to be loved for myself."
"You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!"
"Everyone dies. I just choose the time and place for some of them!"
"They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to catch them, each time, without hurting them."
"The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom; that is to say, of a spectral shade."
"...the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose red cheeks and the lily-white neck and shoulders who gave the explanation in a trembling voice: “It’s the ghost!"
"She's singing to-night to bring the chandelier down!"
"Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!"
"Sometimes, the Angel [of Music] leans over the cradle... and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle at six better than men of fifty, which, you must admit is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practice their scales. And sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a wicked heart or a bad conscience."
"Hullo… the wall is a looking-glass!"
"No, he is not a ghost; he is a man of Heaven and earth, that is all."
"You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself."
"Wildly my Mind beats against you, but my soul obeys."
"Call no man evil who can still love."
"From then on, all I knew he could ever have were dreams."
"Mirrors can kill, Daroga...you may safely take my word for that."
"I'm not an angel, a spirit, or a ghost. I am just Erik."
