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

H. P. Lovecraft

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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Human Passion Standard Universe World
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Aristotle Establishment Poetry Principle Pronounce
Adulthood is hell.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Adult Hell One Liner
My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Boredom Interest List Nervous Save System
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Appearance Chronicle Ingredient Race Terrorism
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
I could not write about ‘ordinary people’ because I am not in the least interested in them.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Interest Myself People Writing
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
No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Course Fiction Formal Story Writing
I have concluded that Literature is no proper pursuit for a gentleman and that Writing ought never to be consider’d but as an elegant Accomplishment to be indulg’d in with infrequency and Discrimination.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Accomplishment Literature Myself Writing
We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Animal Black Magic Darkness Night
Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Mindset Normal Religious Strict
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
Truth is of no practical value to mankind save as it affects terrestrial phenomena, hence the discoveries of science should be concealed or glossed over wherever they conflict with orthodoxy.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Discover Practice Science Truth Value
The cat is classic whilst the dog is Gothic – nowhere in the animal world can we discover such really Hellenic perfection of form, with anatomy adapted to function, as in the felidae.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Animal Cat Classic Dog Hell World
In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Achievement Atmosphere Care Myself Place Story Weird Writing

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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