Fallen Angel...
"How can so much beauty hide such a bruised and steely heart, and why must I love him, why must I lean in my weariness upon his irresistible yet indomitable strength? Is he not the wizened funereal spirit of a dead man in a child's clothe?" - Marius, writing about Armand, The Vampire Armand, p.116
Here Marius asks the very question that I've oft wondered myself. Why is it that Armand is so appealing? What is it about him that is so utterly beautiful that every vampire who meets him, and quite a few readers as well, have fallen deeply in love with him? Here, I've recorded down some my favorite quotes from The Vampire Armand which illuminate a few of the reasons why I think Armand is so captivating. Every word of the quotes belongs solely to Anne Rice, and unless otherwise noted, they are from The Vampire Armand and the words are being spoken by Armand.
Various Pictures of Armand
"I resented this lonely intimacy, resented it enough to transform it, or rid myself of it utterly. I'd rather die or be away, in the dark, simple and lonely with common tears." - p. 17
"But I had no warmth from it, no lasting warmth, and it seemed my loneliness was worse than guilt, worse than the feeling of being damned." - p. 72
"If I'm an angel, paint me with black wings." - p. 79
"I love you still. I will all my nights and all my slumbering days, forever. Your face is as a jewel given me, which I can never forget, though I may foolishly lose it. Its glister will torture me forever." Marius, to Armand, p. 135
"This is the only sun that you will ever see again. But a millenium of nights will be yours to see light as no mortal has ever seen it, to snatch from the distant stars, as if you were Prometheus, an endless illumination by which to understand all things." - Marius, to Armand, p. 139
"Life is a tragedy, one way or another. What is certain is that you die." - p. 193
"He understood better than anyone I've ever known that each being wars with his own angels and devils, each being succumbs to an essential set of values, a theme, as it were, which is inseparable from living a proper life." - p. 204
"...he said that it was difficult for him to treat me as anything but a child, but that I was not a child. Rather I was some spirit like unto a child--naive and maniacal in my pursuit of certain themes. He had never expected to love me so much." Armand, talking about Marius, p. 207
"I fear him. I don't know why. Perhaps I fear him because I could love him again, and loving him, I would come to need him, and needing him, I would come to learn from him, and learning from him, I would be again his faithful pupil in all things, only to discover that his patience for me is no substitute for the passion which long ago blazed in his eyes." - Armand, talking about Marius, p. 279
"I'm a night thing. Hide me in the darkness." - p. 327
"I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough and never will. But this you taught me as much as any other I've ever known, that love is necessary, as much as rain to the flowers and trees, and food to the hungry child, and blood to the starving and thirsty predators and scavengers that we are. Love we need, and love can make us forget and forgive all savagery, as perhaps nothing else can." - Marius, to Armand, p. 382

The image shown above is taken from La Primavera, by Sandro Botticelli, and is also featured on the cover of The Vampire Armand in original first edition, hardcover copy, 1998.