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Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings.

H. P. Lovecraft

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

Course Fiction Formal Story Writing
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
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
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Change Design Development Follow Story Writing
Adulthood is hell.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Adult Hell One Liner
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
To me, there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form – and local human passions and conditions and standards – are depicted as native to other worlds and universes.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Human Passion Standard Universe World
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

Amusement Boredom Himself Polite Throw
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

Acceptance Discipline Easy Immortal Intellectual Mindset Removal Service
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
All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Decrease Happiness Human Important Minimal Value
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
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
Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Education Experience Genuine Imagination Potential
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Childhood Fear Happiness Memories Sadness
Children, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Children Philosophy Point Stick

Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings.

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Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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