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" From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent. "

H. P. Lovecraft

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" I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" Certain of Poe's tales possess an almost absolute perfection of artistic form which makes them veritable beacon-lights in the province of the short story. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" Plots may be simple or complex, but suspense, and climactic progress from one incident to another, are essential. Every incident in a fictional work should have some bearing on the climax or denouement, and any denouement which is not the inevitable result of the preceding incidents is awkward and unliterary. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" Nothing is really typical of my efforts... I'm simply casting about for better ways to crystallise and capture certain strong impressions (involving the elements of time, the unknown, cause and effect, fear, scenic and architectural beauty, and other seemingly ill-assorted things) which persist in clamouring for expression. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" The end of a story must be stronger rather than weaker than the beginning, since it is the end which contains the denouement or culmination and which will leave the strongest impression upon the reader. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" There are, I think, four distinct types of weird story: one expressing a mood or feeling, another expressing a pictorial conception, a third expressing a general situation, condition, legend or intellectual conception, and a fourth explaining a definite tableau or specific dramatic situation or climax. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" The man or nation of high culture may acknowledge to great lengths the restraints imposed by conventions and honour, but beyond a certain point, primitive will or desire cannot be curbed. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

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

H. P. Lovecraft

" Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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

" 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

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

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

" But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" In 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. Lovecraft

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far different nature from the life we know; and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. "

H. P. Lovecraft