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" I am well-nigh resolv'd to write no more tales but merely to dream when I have a mind to, not stopping to do anything so vulgar as to set down the dream for a boarish Publick. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Mind
Down
Dream
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" Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions. "
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" The 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. "
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" From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent. "
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" Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts. "
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" Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. "
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" 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. "
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" 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
Design
Change
Story
" 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. "
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You
Will
" 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
Tell
Street
Will
" 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
Life
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Memories
" 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
Style
Feel
Fantasy
" 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
Peace
Black
Life
" Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Green
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" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Infinity
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" Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species - if separate species we be - for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world. "
H. P. Lovecraft
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" All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept. "
H. P. Lovecraft
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Reading
Will
" 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
Up
See
Cats
" 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
Stories
Close
Course
" 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. Lovecraft
Dreams
Business
Thoughts
" 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
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" Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Time
Ocean
Nature
" 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. "
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First
Always
" 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
Nothing
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" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Children
Stars
Own
" I could not write about 'ordinary people' because I am not in the least interested in them. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Because
Ordinary
I Am
" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Care
Wish
Me
" 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
Become
Weird
Status
" There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Thoughts
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" 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
Laws
Emotions
Common
" 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
Better
Beauty
Time