The best The Tell-Tale Heart quotes

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

- Narrator

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense.

Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think.

True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.

And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.

Villains!' I shrieked. 'Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!

If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.