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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.

H. P. Lovecraft

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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Care Heaven Known Myself Safety Top
I do not think that any realism is beautiful.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beautiful Realism Thinking
Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Ancient Dreams Memories Mountain Ocean Ourselves Time
Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

End Journey Sing
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
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Accomplishment Emotional Mindset Play Relieve
The ‘punch’ of a truly weird tale is simply some violation or transcending of fixed cosmic law – an imaginative escape from palling reality – hence, phenomena rather than persons are the logical ‘heroes.’
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Escape Phenomena Reality Story Tale Transcendence Weird
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
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
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
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
The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Black Fascination Form
In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Appearance Atheist Rational Theory
I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Demand Enthusiasm Fear Myself Work
Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Creation Deep Fear Illusion Nature Ourselves Strong

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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No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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