“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.”

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.

Never should an unfamiliar word be passed over without elucidation, for, with a little conscientious research, we may each day add to our conquests in the realm of philology and become more and more ready for graceful independent expression.

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

The man or nation of high culture may acknowledge to great lengths the restraints imposed by conventions and honour, but beyond a certain point, primitive will or desire cannot be curbed.

I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.

All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.

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.

One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about.

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.

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.

I do not think that any realism is beautiful.

What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world’s beauty, is everything!

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.

We 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.

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.

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.

There are only a few genres, horror and comedy, where you can get that immediate feedback from the audience.

Broad daylight does not encourage the apprehension of horror.

I like ‘Rocky Horror.’

We’ve had mass shootings in the United States in the part of violent antiabortion protesters, in the part of violent pro-ISIS militants.

The trick and the trap and the horror is not faith, Scott. I don’t think the trap and the horror is fanaticism.

I think in the case of horror, it’s a chance to confront a lot of your worse fears and those fears usually have to do, ironically, with powerlessness and isolation.

There are two kinds of people in the world – those who have a horror of a vacuum and those with a horror of the things that fill it. Translated into domestic interiors, this means people who live with, and without, clutter.

Horror itself in that fair scene looks gay, And joy springs up e’en in the midst of fear.