I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.
H. P. LOVECRAFTI never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.
H. P. LOVECRAFTIt 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. LOVECRAFTOcean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.
H. P. LOVECRAFTIn writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.
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.
H. P. LOVECRAFTHeaven 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. LOVECRAFTThe sole ultimate factor in human decisions is physical force. This we must learn, however repugnant the idea may seem, if we are to protect ourselves and our institutions. Reliance on anything else is fallacious and ruinous.
H. P. LOVECRAFTVery few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
H. P. LOVECRAFTWhat 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. LOVECRAFTChildren, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point.
H. P. LOVECRAFTThe 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. LOVECRAFTThe appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.
H. P. LOVECRAFTI fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.
H. P. LOVECRAFTThe 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. LOVECRAFTThe 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.
H. P. LOVECRAFTBunch 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