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. LOVECRAFTWe 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.
More H. P. Lovecraft Quotes
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All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.
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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.
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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.
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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.’
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One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about.
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From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.
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The monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect succession of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines.
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There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of The Street.
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The earliest English attempts at rhyming probably included words whose agreement is so slight that it deserves the name of mere ‘assonance’ rather than that of actual rhyme.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
The real lover of cats is one who demands a clearer adjustment to the universe than ordinary household platitudes provide; one who refuses to swallow the sentimental notion that all good people love dogs, children, and horses while all bad people dislike and are disliked by such.
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Children, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point.
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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 -
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.
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All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.
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Adulthood is hell.
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The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
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 -
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 -
The most merciful thing in the world, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species – if separate species we be – for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
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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 -
All of my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large.
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To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.
H. P. LOVECRAFT