black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Decision Factor Force Human Ideas Institution Ourselves Protection Ultimate
The reason why time plays a great part in so many of my tales is that this element looms up in my mind as the most profoundly dramatic and grimly terrible thing in the universe.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Drama Element Greatness Play Reason Terrible Time Universe
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
But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false?
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Dreams Fake Poet Travel
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Artificial Follow Practical Religion True
Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Mindset Normal Religious Strict
Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

End Journey Sing
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Absolute Form Light Perfection Possession
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
We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Black Ignorance Live Ourselves Travel
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Connection Emotion Fear Horror Lay Natural Unknown
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
The most merciful thing in the world, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Content Human Mercy Mindset World
A dog is a pitiful thing, depending wholly on companionship, and utterly lost except in packs or by the side of his master. Leave him alone, and he does not know what to do except bark and howl and trot about till sheer exhaustion forces him to sleep.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Dog Exception Force Leaving Pity Sleep
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Character Fantasy Feeling Reading Ruin Serious Style Wonder
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Conscious Doubt Experience Life Man Memories Wake Up

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More H. P. Lovecraft Quotes