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" 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
Story
First
Always
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" Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Most
Folklore
Cosmic
" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Live
Furniture
Week
" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Describe
Right
Cannot
" 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
English
Name
Whose
" 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
Perfect
Cat
Beauty
" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Life Is A
Truth
Life
" Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Genuine
Experience
Place
" Truth is of no practical value to mankind save as it affects terrestrial phenomena, hence the discoveries of science should be concealed or glossed over wherever they conflict with orthodoxy. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Truth Is
Conflict
Over
" The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Mind
Human
Most
" Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Few
Minds
Normal
" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Mind
Reason
Great
" Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Song
End
Journey
" 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
End
Leave
Story
" Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Emotion
Fear
Deepest
" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Information
I Am
Opinion
" Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Sadness
Only
Memories
" The monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect succession of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Poem
Long
Perfect
" Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Green
Black
White
" 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
Like
Even
Cats
" 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. "
H. P. Lovecraft
People
You
Together
" I am essentially a recluse who will have very little to do with people wherever he may be. I think that most people only make me nervous - that only by accident, and in extremely small quantities, would I ever be likely to come across people who wouldn't. "
H. P. Lovecraft
People
Think
I Am
" 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
Result
Simple
Suspense
" 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
" 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
Young
Writing
Patience
" 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
Man
Memories
" I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Flags
Fear
Real
" 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
Life
Children
" 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
Respect
Man
Training
" All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness. "
H. P. Lovecraft
Happiness
Value
Sum Total
" The 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. Lovecraft
Life
Degree
Everyday