One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it.
H. P. LOVECRAFTNever 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.
More H. P. Lovecraft Quotes
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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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
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 -
Horrors, I believe, should be original – the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and shambles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared – as it always should be.
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 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 most merciful thing in the world, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilised cynic to do other than worship it.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
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!
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 -
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day’s end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H. P. LOVECRAFT