“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.”

The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination.

Even when the characters are supposed to be accustomed to the wonder, I try to weave an air of awe and impressiveness corresponding to what the reader should feel. A casual style ruins any serious fantasy.

From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.

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.

Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent.

Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.

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.

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.

Heaven knows where I’ll end up – but it’s a safe bet that I’ll never be at the top of anything! Nor do I particularly care to be.

Horror and the unknown or the strange are always closely connected so that it is hard to create a convincing picture of shattered natural law or cosmic alienage or ‘outsideness’ without laying stress on the emotion of fear.

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.

That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish.

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.

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.

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.

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.

We try to avoid the single-building syndrome. You have to look at the big picture. If you try to put social and cultural development ahead of economic development, it doesn’t work. You have to do it all together.

Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for progress and development, it is vital to our existence.

We can, following the exemple of Kant, consider the moral development and improvement of men, as the supreme goal of human evolution.

While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises.

I developed a problem with authority. Any time that authority was what I interpreted as being unjust, I stood up to it, and that became my personality.

The intellectual development of man, far from having get men away from war, has, rather, on the contrary, bring them to a refinment always more perfected in the art of killing.

I discovered I was passionate about the creative process, the product development, creating a concept around a fragrance or lipstick.

Far too often, children with developmental disorders are diagnosed solely on the basis of their observable behavior