Quotes

Lestat here. This question comes from Vicki Golightly: “I have never read the books but I have heard so much about them and yes I do have a question, how were you created and do you have a soul?” — Vicki, if you mean how was I created as a vampire, the process was simple. I was kidnapped by an older vampire named Magnus, taken by force to his tower outside of Paris, and there made a vampire through an exchange of blood. Magnus drained me to the point of death and had I not drunk his powerful blood after that, I would have died. Well, I drank it. And I became a vampire like him. This is how it is done with our species; the human is drained and then infused with the maker’s blood. And yes, I most certainly do have a soul — as surely as any human being has a soul. I define soul as that invisible and conscious part of myself which may or may not survive biological death. And I am certain I have one; I am certain that all human beings have souls. And very likely some non-human beings have souls as well. But this soul question is a matter of faith. I can tell you for certain that I have a conscience, and it is a very human conscience, though I do not always listen to it by any means. —- Vicki, thanks again for your question. —- I’ll be back later today with more answers.

Another Fan Question for Lestat answered!

Lestat here. Many of you have asked me whether or not I have any regrets. At first I ignored this question, because I am constitutionally opposed to the very idea of regret. But the more I saw the question, the more I thought about the whole matter. And I think there is indeed one thing in my life that I actively regret. I regret that during the 19th century when I lived in New Orleans with my vampire companions, Louis and Claudia, I did not tell them more about our origins, and about the vampires of the old world. I thought at the time that I was protecting them from secrets that could only hurt them, sheltering them in a wilderness and paradise that belonged exclusively to the three of us. But this was all wrong. I should have known that Louis and Claudia needed to know about the origins of our kind, needed to know where we’d come from, needed to know whether or not there were others out there, and I should have anticipated and encouraged their questions rather than keeping them at a distance from myself. Of course one reason I made this awful mistake is that I did know secrets about vampires that I was bound by an oath not to reveal. But I could have told Louis and Claudia more than I did. I could have respected their need for knowledge. I truly regret that I did not. As many of you know, our little coven family came to disaster, and I think I had a hand in that disaster, by not giving my beloved fledglings more information and insight into what we were. —- I’ll be back later to answer more questions.

Another Fan Question for Lestat answered.

Lestat here. My question today is from Heather Malone: “Lestat! What are your thoughts on gender? Does it matter? Do you think you would have lived your life the same way had you been born female? Best regards, H.” Thank you, Heather. Gender matters only because it matters to biology and society. I can’t imagine how I might have lived my life as a woman, simply because society in my time and even in the present sees women so differently from the way it sees men. I would have been restricted by law and custom in ways as a woman that I was never restricted as a man. How would I personally, the irreducible Lestat, have responded to life had I been a woman? Impossible to know. But I can tell you how my mother, Gabrielle, responded once she became a vampire. She put aside women’s garments and lived as a genderless being, ignoring society entirely and taking full possession of her superior vampiric strength with genderless impunity. She discarded feminine limitations with her feminine garments. She reveled in her new invulnerability. I admire her for it. — Now when it comes to loving others, caring about them, respecting them, becoming involved with them, no, gender means nothing to me. Almost all vampires ultimately transcend gender concerns in their social and emotional relationships. —- That being said, I would say how we personally respond to gender in all our dealings remains a mystery; some individuals no matter how long they walk the earth, may have deep biases based on gender, biases developed in them during a mortal lifetime. These might be so subtle as to defy qualification or analysis. I pride myself on having none, but I’m not sure that I’m right about myself in this. I have respect for the fact that this is a mystery. — I’ve certainly lived long enough to see that society’s assumptions about gender in my time were all proven false and foolish. On the other hand, there are aspects of gender difference that never change for human beings, no matter how much we would like them to change. —- Gender, it matters and it doesn’t matter. Thank you, again, Heather.

Anne Rice’s FB. Another Fan Question for Lestat answered.

Lestat here. I want to answer this question from Zaira Maranelli:
“Lestat… could you explain to me what is love for you? I speak about the deep love that make you suffer and pain, that make you forget about you and your thoughts… Have you really ever felt that?” Love, for me, Zaira, is caring for another so completely that that person is as important to you as yourself, so that you suffer when that person suffers, you know joy when that person knows joy, and you cannot separate your own fate from that person’s fate without considerable angst and misery. That is love. And yes, I have known it —- for my mother, for my beloved Nicholas and for Louis, and for Claudia, and for Armand and for others. Love is rooted in understanding, deep emotional and physical attraction, and in common sympathy. And once you love some one like that, well, you have given a hostage to fate. I find it impossible to live without loving. I find it excruciating to feel that I am utterly unloved. I thrive on loving and on being loved. I cannot contemplate living for any length of time without the hope of love, without hoping to experience love in my daily existence, and without the hope of knowing love in the future. In my worst trials, the memory of having been loved, and of loving has sustained me. Part of the agony of loving can be discovering that you have been cruel to the one you love, that you have cheated that person, that you have rejected the loved one when you did not mean to do it at all, that you have failed the person utterly. I have experienced all this; the fault was in me; not in loving. I have loved imperfectly, but I’m learning to love in new and better ways all the time.

ooc; The Saga of Mater’s RPing

also

HIS NAME

IS

FUCKING

NICOLAS

NOT

NICHOLAS

(via merciful-death)

Lestat here. Last night, through this FB page, I received this question from Davetta L. Wilson. “If you could have one companion for all eternity, who would you choose? Well, Davetta, I will never face such a choice, obviously, but if I did have to choose, the companion would be Louis. My longest most enduring friendship and love affair in this world was with Louis. And though his limitations can be maddening, they can also be as inspiring to me as his virtues. Of course it might seem that Marius would be a wiser choice. After all, Marius is 2000 years old, and entered eternity with the mind of a brilliant Roman philosopher. But the best choices we make are not always the wise choices. Sometimes they are intensely emotional choices. And I’ve always had a deep Romantic respect for emotion. My love for Louis transcends wisdom. And I may need the pain as much as the consolation that an eternal relationship with Louis would involve. Thank you, Davetta, for your question. Lestat signing off.

-Anne Rice’s facebook.

vampchronfic:

YOU GUYS

Not like we didn’t know it all along, but it was a really nice thing to read first thing this morning!

^Ditto ♥u♥ 

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