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

H. P. Lovecraft

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
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
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
Horrors, I believe, should be original – the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Believe Common Influence Legend Weakness
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
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
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Dare Myself Place Soul
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
One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Effect Important Vocabulary
I am essentially a recluse who will have very little to do with people wherever he may be. I think that most people only make me nervous – that only by accident, and in extremely small quantities, would I ever be likely to come across people who wouldn’t.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Accident Essential Myself Nervous People Thinking
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Grace Independent Philology Research Word
Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Choice Expression Feeling Group People Religious Sanity Strong Togetherness
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
To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Pursue Revelation Science Truth
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
Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Chaos Color Different Inspirational Ocean Silence

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

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

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