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" 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

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" I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams. "

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" I do not think that any realism is beautiful. "

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" 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. "

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" Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience. "

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" My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me. "

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" I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" It is only the forcible propagation of conventional Christianity that makes the agnostic so bitter toward the church. He knows that all the doctrines cannot possibly be true, but he would view them with toleration if he were asked merely to let them alone for the benefit of the masses whom they can help and succour. "

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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. "

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" 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

" 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. "

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" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" It 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. Lovecraft

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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" Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. "

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

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" 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. "

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" Adulthood is hell. "

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" One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it. "

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" One cannot be too careful in the selection of adjectives for descriptions. Words or compounds which describe precisely, and which convey exactly the right suggestions to the mind of the reader, are essential. "

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

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

H. P. Lovecraft