S. T. Joshi Quotes

United States, Novelist
June 22, 1958

Sunand Tryambak Joshi (born 22 June 1958), known as S. T. Joshi, is an American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction. Besides having written what critics such as Harold Bloom and Joyce Carol Oates consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft, I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (Hippocampus Press, 2 vols., 2010 [originally published in one volume as H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996]), Joshi has prepared (with David E. Schultz) several annotated editions of works by Ambrose Bierce. He has also written on crime novelist John Dickson Carr and on Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood and M. R. James, and has edited collections of their works, as well as collections of the best work of numerous other weird writers.

Also known as Literary Critic, Author

I am one of maybe three people in the world who knows anything about Robert W. Chambers.

S. T. Joshi
My father insisted that I and my sisters not be indoctrinated into any religion at any age.

S. T. Joshi
- Age
- Father
- Religion

You might say I was a passive atheist through my teenage years.

S. T. Joshi
- You
- Years
- Atheist
I am sort of a tea addict. I structure my day by cups of tea.

S. T. Joshi
- Tea
- Structure
- Addict
I may have had a prejudice against agnosticism as a body of thought: sort of a fence-sitting theory, where you can't make up your mind one way or another.

S. T. Joshi
- Up
- Mind
- May
You go back to T. H. Huxley, who coined the term, what he said - and I came to believe he is right - is that agnosticism asserts not only that he himself didn't know if there was a God or not, but that nobody could know.

S. T. Joshi
- God
- Believe
- Know
The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should insist on the need to engage in a meaningful debate on the entire issue of the truth or falsity (or probability or improbability) of religious tenets, without being subject to accusations of impiety, immorality, impoliteness, or any of the other smokescreens used by the pious to deflect attention from the central issues at hand.

S. T. Joshi
The prose of Joe Pulver can take its place with that of the masters of our genre – E.A. Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti – while his imaginative reach is something uniquely his own.

S. T. Joshi
- Masters
- Genre
- Lovecraft

God's existence needs to be established independently before he can be brought into account for causation; it cannot be assumed at the start.

S. T. Joshi
- God
- Needs
- Existence
I myself am not comfortable with the notion of secularists congregating in groups, except perhaps for defensive purposes: the last thing a secularist should wish to do is to act like a religion, with its rigid hierarchies, its suppression of divergent opinion, and, above all, its ruthless attempts (now mercifully inhibited by laws) to outlaw "heresy" by brute force. Opinions must be changed, one at a time if necessary, but if there are those who wish to persist in religious belief, they should certainly be allowed to do so.

S. T. Joshi
The decline of witch-belief was . . . entirely the product of religious skepticism. . . . The Catholic Church did not reform itself on this matter; it was forced by outside pressure to reform. To be sure, the Protestant churches were no better in this regard; it is simply that they had less time - only two or three centuries - to engage in the torching of witches. After all, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, stated quite correctly that disbelief in witches meant a disbelief in the Bible.

S. T. Joshi
Richard Gavin is one of the bright new stars in contemporary weird fiction. His richly textured style, deft character portrayal, and powerful horrific conceptions make every one of his tales a pleasure to read.

S. T. Joshi
- Character
- Style
- Powerful