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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.

H. P. Lovecraft

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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Better Chaos Creation Immense Life Relation Value
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Change Design Development Follow Story Writing
Man’s respect for the imponderables varies according to his mental constitution and environment. Through certain modes of thought and training, it can be elevated tremendously, yet there is always a limit.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Constitution Environment Limitation Man Mental Respect Training
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Demon Hide Known Life Ourselves Secret Truth
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

Care Description Essential Mindset Reading Selection
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. LOVECRAFT

Atmosphere Greatness Human Mood
But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false?
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Dreams Fake Poet Travel
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Emotion Fear Feeling Kind Man Old Strong Unknown
Adulthood is hell.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Adult Hell One Liner
Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Education Experience Genuine Imagination Potential
What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world’s beauty, is everything!
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beautiful Instrument Man Pay Responsive World
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Aesthetic Perfection Scarce Symbol Worship
All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Decrease Happiness Human Important Minimal Value
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Change Condition History Man Mental Physical
Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and shambles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Amusement Boredom Himself Polite Throw
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beginning End Leaving Reading Story Strong

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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