“I am disillusioned enough to know that no man’s opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he’s talking about.”

We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.

Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.

But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.

In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.

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.

My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.

Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.

Write out the story – rapidly, fluently, and not too critically – following the second or narrative-order synopsis. Change incidents and plot whenever the developing process seems to suggest such change, never being bound by any previous design.

I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.

All of my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large.

Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.

I am well-nigh resolv’d to write no more tales but merely to dream when I have a mind to, not stopping to do anything so vulgar as to set down the dream for a boarish Publick.

In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.

Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.

If we take shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master, we can become free from illusion, fear and distress. If we wholeheartedly beg for his mercy without any deceit then the spiritual master bestows all auspiciousness upon us.

We must escape our illusions of correctness to understand the actions and beliefs of others.

We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.

Completed, most lives were alike in stages of living-joys, celebrations, crises, illusions, losses, sorrows.

When beggars and shoeshine boys, barbers and beauticians can tell you how to get rich it is time to remind yourself that there is no more dangerous illusion than the belief that one can get something for nothing.

As time goes by, as time goes by, the whip-crack of the years, the precipice of illusions, the ravine that swallows up all human endeavour except the struggle to survive.

Simply naming objectives isn’t sufficient for a vision. If I say that I’m going to build a large palace, but I don’t have any money to do so, then that is not a vision – it’s an illusion.

There is no liberation to compare with freeing oneself from the illusions and delusions of the age in which one lives.