H. P. Lovecraft Quotes
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To shake off the maddening and wearying limitations of time and space and natural law-to be linked with the vast outside-to come close to the nighted and abysmal secrets of the infinite and the ultimate-surely such a thing was worth the risk of one’s life, soul, and sanity!
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The 'punch' of a truly weird tale is simply some violation or transcending of fixed cosmic law - an imaginative escape from palling reality - hence, phenomena rather than persons are the logical 'heroes.'
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I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.
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But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.
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Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.
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We call ourselves a dog's 'master' - but who ever dared to call himself the 'master' of a cat? We own a dog - he is with us as a slave and inferior because we wish him to be. But we entertain a cat - he adorns our hearth as a guest, fellow-lodger, and equal because he wishes to be there.
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We should perceive that man's period of historical existence, a period so short that his physical constitution has not been altered in the slightest degree, is insufficient to allow of any considerable mental change.
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Of our relation to all creation we can never know anything whatsoever. All is immensity and chaos. But, since all this knowledge of our limitations cannot possibly be of any value to us, it is better to ignore it in our daily conduct of life.
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Never should an unfamiliar word be passed over without elucidation, for, with a little conscientious research, we may each day add to our conquests in the realm of philology and become more and more ready for graceful independent expression.
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The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.
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My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.
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For correct writing, the cultivation of patience and mental accuracy is essential. Throughout the young author's period of apprenticeship, he must keep reliable dictionaries and textbooks at his elbow; eschewing as far as possible that hasty extemporaneous manner of writing which is the privilege of more advanced students.
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The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
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I have concluded that Literature is no proper pursuit for a gentleman and that Writing ought never to be consider'd but as an elegant Accomplishment to be indulg'd in with infrequency and Discrimination.
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Orthodox Christianity, by playing upon the emotions of man, is able to accomplish wonders toward keeping him in order and relieving his mind. It can frighten or cajole him away from evil more effectively than could reason.
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The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely.
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To me, there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form – and local human passions and conditions and standards – are depicted as native to other worlds and universes.
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The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!
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Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.
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Plots may be simple or complex, but suspense, and climactic progress from one incident to another, are essential. Every incident in a fictional work should have some bearing on the climax or denouement, and any denouement which is not the inevitable result of the preceding incidents is awkward and unliterary.
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The glorious Dryden, refiner and purifier of English verse, did less for rhyme than he did for metre.
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It is only the forcible propagation of conventional Christianity that makes the agnostic so bitter toward the church. He knows that all the doctrines cannot possibly be true, but he would view them with toleration if he were asked merely to let them alone for the benefit of the masses whom they can help and succour.
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The end of a story must be stronger rather than weaker than the beginning, since it is the end which contains the denouement or culmination and which will leave the strongest impression upon the reader.
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Zoologists seem to consider the cerebration of cats and dogs about 50-50 -- but my respect always goes to the cool, sure, impersonal, delicately poised feline who minds his business and never slobbers.