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.
H. P. LOVECRAFTThe monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect succession of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines.
More H. P. Lovecraft Quotes
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Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.
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The sole ultimate factor in human decisions is physical force. This we must learn, however repugnant the idea may seem, if we are to protect ourselves and our institutions. Reliance on anything else is fallacious and ruinous.
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In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.
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I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors.
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Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.
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Certain of Poe’s tales possess an almost absolute perfection of artistic form which makes them veritable beacon-lights in the province of the short story.
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The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilised cynic to do other than worship it.
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I am not very proud of being an human being; in fact, I distinctly dislike the species in many ways. I can readily conceive of beings vastly superior in every respect.
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The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
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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.
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It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared – as it always should be.
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The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.
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Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
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We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
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Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.
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Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings.
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No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.
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Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.
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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.
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The earliest English attempts at rhyming probably included words whose agreement is so slight that it deserves the name of mere ‘assonance’ rather than that of actual rhyme.
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There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.
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From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far different nature from the life we know; and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking.
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I do not think that any realism is beautiful.
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From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.
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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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One cannot be too careful in the selection of adjectives for descriptions. Words or compounds which describe precisely, and which convey exactly the right suggestions to the mind of the reader, are essential.
H. P. LOVECRAFT