- Edgar Allan Poe: Take this kiss upon the brow!/And, in parting from you now/ Thus much let me avow/You are not wrong, who deem/All that we see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream.
- Maddux: I believe that God gave him a spark of genius and quenched it in misery. But as far as something like this... The only thing he's ever killed is a bottle of brandy.
- Ivan: The idea of drinking something that will kill you, but having time to carry on a conversation is, as they say, fraught with dramatic possibilities.
- Edgar Allan Poe: What's going on?
- Detective Fields: I'm Detective Fields. Please, sit down, Mr. Poe.
- Edgar Allan Poe: Yes. The infamous Detective Fields. Am I under arrest?
- Detective Fields: No... not just yet.
- Edgar Allan Poe: Then I'd rather stand! It makes it easier to leave!
- [first title card]
- Title Card: On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was found, near death, on a park bench in Baltimore, Maryland. The last days of his life remain a mystery.
- Emily Hamilton: And neither the angels in heaven above/ Nor the demons down under the sea/ Can ever dissever my soul from the soul/ Of the beautiful Annabelle Lee.
- Edgar Allan Poe: I often thought I could hear the sound of darkness as it stole across the horizon, rushing towards me. But here I was overwhelmed by a sorrow so poignant. Once she finally died I felt in all candour a great release, but it was soon supplanted by the return of that dark and morbid melancholy that has followed me like a black dog all my life...
- Edgar Allan Poe: Emily, I think we should reconsider our announcement.
- Emily Hamilton: Why? Are you backing out?
- Edgar Allan Poe: No, no, no. Never. If your father sees me there tomorrow, he may have me shot. And, there well may be a depraved killer on the guest list. It's a bit much for one night.
- Emily Hamilton: I think it sounds thrilling.
- Edgar Allan Poe: Does it? Why?
- Emily Hamilton: [amused] How else should Edgar Allen Poe commit himself to eternal love other than under threat of death?
- Edgar Allan Poe: [after he hops into the carriage] I've come to back to town for your daughter, Charles.
- Capt. Charles Hamilton: Over my dead body!
- Edgar Allan Poe: Is that an option?
- Emily Hamilton: [feigning disgust] Oh, please. I find you revolting as some of your stupid stories.
- Edgar Allan Poe: Some, but not all.
- Ivan: [concerned about the mud] Mr. Poe, your clothes!
- Edgar Allan Poe: Just beating the mudslingers to it!
- Emily Hamilton: So, I had to hear about your stunt all afternoon.
- Edgar Allan Poe: Just wanted to see if I could get that little vein on the side of his neck to finally explode.
- Edgar Allan Poe: [in relation to the murder] You're talking about one of my stories? A work of fiction.
- Edgar Allan Poe: [finding a replica of the Pit and the Pendulum with Griswold dead] I really hadn't imagine the counter weight to be so large.
- Detective Fields: We have reason to believe you know the victim.
- Capt. Charles Hamilton: [in reference to the stories] Who was Prospero?
- Detective Fields: He was the host of the ball... and the first to die.
- Capt. Charles Hamilton: Mr. Fields, I'm happy to indulge your request for the additional security. But I warn you, if I see this man
- [Poe]
- Capt. Charles Hamilton: there tomorrow night, you will have to protect him from me!
- Edgar Allan Poe: I feel as if I've gone from author to character in one of my many tales. I'm as trapped and bedeviled as any of the hapless bastards I ever created.
- Detective Fields: I can appreciate that.
- Edgar Allan Poe: Regardless of what you think of me, Fields... I am a master of my art and I will not fail. Ever.
- Edgar Allan Poe: I will kill him. No matter how this ends. I will kill this perversion of a man. For godspeed, even his prose is barbaric.
- Ivan: You came this far, Mr. Poe. Are you really gonna back out now? You know what happens next. You're the one who it, after all.
- Emily Hamilton: [breathless] You did mean it?
- Edgar Allan Poe: Mean what?
- Emily Hamilton: When you said you would marry me.
- Edgar Allan Poe: In this life and the next.
- Detective Fields: Do you have a cause of death?
- Doc Clements: I'm sorry, I don't. I have a few ideas... but as you know, he was brought in in a very deranged state.
- Detective Fields: I'm told he was ranting.
- Doc Clements: Yes,. He kept going on and on about telling you that your last name was 'Reynolds'. It that helpful or gibberish?
- Detective Fields: Maybe both.