H. P. Lovecraft Quotes And Sayings

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Virtually unknown and published only in pulp magazines before he died in poverty, he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in his genre. Never able to support himself from earnings as author and editor, Lovecraft saw commercial success increasingly elude him in this latter period, partly because he lacked the confidence and drive to promote himself.

We Live On A Placid Island Of Ignorance In The Midst Of Black Seas Of Infinity, And It Was Not Meant That We Should Voyage Far.

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.

I Never Ask A Man What His Business Is, For It Never Interests Me. What I Ask Him About Are His Thoughts And Dreams.

Of Our Relation To All Creation We Can Never Know Anything Whatsoever. All Is Immensity And Chaos. But, Since All This Knowledge Of Our Limitations Cannot Possibly Be Of Any Value To Us, It Is Better To Ignore It In Our Daily Conduct Of Life.

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.

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.

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.

The Most Merciful Thing In The World... Is The Inability Of The Human Mind To Correlate All Its Contents.

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.

But Are Not The Dreams Of Poets And The Tales Of Travellers Notoriously False?

The Process Of Delving Into The Black Abyss Is To Me The Keenest Form Of Fascination.

We Shall See That At Which Dogs Howl In The Dark, And That At Which Cats Prick Up Their Ears After Midnight.

Ocean Is More Ancient Than The Mountains, And Freighted With The Memories And The Dreams Of Time.

Blue, Green, Grey, White, Or Black; Smooth, Ruffled, Or Mountainous; That Ocean Is Not Silent.

I Am Disillusioned Enough To Know That No Man's Opinion On Any Subject Is Worth A Damn Unless Backed Up With Enough Genuine Information To Make Him Really Know What He's Talking About.

To The Scientist There Is The Joy In Pursuing Truth Which Nearly Counteracts The Depressing Revelations Of Truth.

The World Is Indeed Comic, But The Joke Is On Mankind.

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.

I Fear My Enthusiasm Flags When Real Work Is Demanded Of Me.

I Could Not Write About 'Ordinary People' Because I Am Not In The Least Interested In Them.

Very Few Minds Are Strictly Normal, And All Religious Fanatics Are Marked With Abnormalities Of Various Sorts.

Cats Are The Runes Of Beauty, Invincibility, Wonder, Pride, Freedom, Coldness, Self-sufficiency, And Dainty Individuality - The Qualities Of Sensitive, Enlightened, Mentally Developed, Pagan, Cynical, Poetic, Philosophic, Dispassionate, Reserved, Independent, Nietzschean, Unbroken, Civilised, Master-class Men.

I Couldn't Live A Week Without A Private Library - Indeed, I'd Part With All My Furniture And Squat And Sleep On The Floor Before I'd Let Go Of The 1500 Or So Books I Possess.

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.

Unhappy Is He To Whom The Memories Of Childhood Bring Only Fear And Sadness.

In Theory I Am An Agnostic, But Pending The Appearance Of Rational Evidence, I Must Be Classed, Practically And Provisionally, As An Atheist.

It Is Absolutely Necessary, For The Peace And Safety Of Mankind, That Some Of Earth's Dark, Dead Corners And Unplumbed Depths Be Let Alone; Lest Sleeping Abnormalities Wake To Resurgent Life, And Blasphemously Surviving Nightmares Squirm And Splash Out Of Their Black Lairs To Newer And Wider Conquests.

Toil Without Song Is Like A Weary Journey Without An End.

All Rationalism Tends To Minimalise The Value And The Importance Of Life And To Decrease The Sum Total Of Human Happiness.

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.

No Breed Of Cats In Its Proper Condition Can By Any Stretch Of The Imagination Be Thought Of As Even Slightly Ungraceful - A Record Against Which Must Be Pitted The Depressing Spectacle Of Impossibly Flattened Bulldogs, Grotesquely Elongated Dachshunds, Hideously Shapeless And Shaggy Airedales, And The Like.

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.

Children Will Always Be Afraid Of The Dark, And Men With Minds Sensitive To Hereditary Impulse Will Always Tremble At The Thought Of The Hidden And Fathomless Worlds Of Strange Life Which May Pulsate In The Gulfs Beyond The Stars, Or Press Hideously Upon Our Own Globe In Unholy Dimensions Which Only The Dead And The Moonstruck Can Glimpse.

The Oldest And Strongest Emotion Of Mankind Is Fear, And The Oldest And Strongest Kind Of Fear Is Fear Of The Unknown.

From Even The Greatest Of Horrors, Irony Is Seldom Absent.

All Of My Tales Are Based On The Fundamental Premise That Common Human Laws And Emotions Have No Validity Or Significance In The Cosmos-at-large.

Adulthood Is Hell.

Imagination Is A Very Potent Thing, And In The Uneducated Often Usurps The Place Of Genuine Experience.

It Is A Mistake To Fancy That Horror Is Associated Inextricably With Darkness, Silence, And Solitude.

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.

My Nervous System Is A Shattered Wreck, And I Am Absolutely Bored And Listless Save When I Come Upon Something Which Peculiarly Interests Me.

I Do Not Think That Any Realism Is Beautiful.

We Must Realise That Man's Nature Will Remain The Same So Long As He Remains Man; That Civilisation Is But A Slight Coverlet Beneath Which The Dominant Beast Sleeps Lightly And Ever Ready To Awake. To Preserve Civilisation, We Must Deal Scientifically With The Brute Element, Using Only Genuine Biological Principles.

Personally, I Would Not Care For Immortality In The Least. There Is Nothing Better Than Oblivion, Since In Oblivion There Is No Wish Unfulfilled. We Had It Before We Were Born Yet Did Not Complain. Shall We Whine Because We Know It Will Return? It Is Elysium Enough For Me, At Any Rate.

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.

The Cat Is Classic Whilst The Dog Is Gothic - Nowhere In The Animal World Can We Discover Such Really Hellenic Perfection Of Form, With Anatomy Adapted To Function, As In The Felidae.

A Dog Is A Pitiful Thing, Depending Wholly On Companionship, And Utterly Lost Except In Packs Or By The Side Of His Master. Leave Him Alone, And He Does Not Know What To Do Except Bark And Howl And Trot About Till Sheer Exhaustion Forces Him To Sleep.

For Correct Writing, The Cultivation Of Patience And Mental Accuracy Is Essential. Throughout The Young Author's Period Of Apprenticeship, He Must Keep Reliable Dictionaries And Textbooks At His Elbow; Eschewing As Far As Possible That Hasty Extemporaneous Manner Of Writing Which Is The Privilege Of More Advanced Students.

An Excellent Habit To Cultivate Is The Analytical Study Of The King James Bible. For Simple Yet Rich And Forceful English, This Masterly Production Is Hard To Equal; And Even Though Its Saxon Vocabulary And Poetic Rhythm Be Unsuited To General Composition, It Is An Invaluable Model For Writers On Quaint Or Imaginative Themes.

No Formal Course In Fiction-writing Can Equal A Close And Observant Perusal Of The Stories Of Edgar Allan Poe Or Ambrose Bierce.