“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.”

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.

That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish.

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.

Orthodox Christianity, by playing upon the emotions of man, is able to accomplish wonders toward keeping him in order and relieving his mind. It can frighten or cajole him away from evil more effectively than could reason.

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.

I am not very proud of being an human being; in fact, I distinctly dislike the species in many ways. I can readily conceive of beings vastly superior in every respect.

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

But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false?

Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.

If I could create an ideal world, it would be an England with the fire of the Elizabethans, the correct taste of the Georgians, and the refinement and pure ideals of the Victorians.

Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.

Children, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point.

I could not write about ‘ordinary people’ because I am not in the least interested in them.

Adulthood is hell.

Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.

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.

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.

Let architects sing of aesthetics that bring Rich clients in hordes to their knees.

I was once described by one of my critics as an aesthetic fascist.

Actors aren’t stupid, mostly, and if there’s a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director’s going for, if you’re aware of that too, you can do things to help that.

A man obsessed: obsessed with perfection, sharing, aesthetics, taste, savoir-faire, and much more.

Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.

The aesthetic process decentres the specular relation with which ideology perpetuates its closed infinity.

The aesthetic effect is certainly imaginary; but this imaginary is not the reflection of the real, since it is the real of this reflection.