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" Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. "

H. P. Lovecraft

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" 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

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

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

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" 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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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. "

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" 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. "

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" No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce. "

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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 'punch' of a truly weird tale is simply some violation or transcending of fixed cosmic law - an imaginative escape from palling reality - hence, phenomena rather than persons are the logical 'heroes.' "

H. P. Lovecraft

" Horrors, I believe, should be original - the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence. "

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

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" Indeed, there is much in pure humanitarian culture, as opposed to rigid scientific training, which encourages absorption in the affairs of mankind, and more or less indifference to the unfathomed abysses of star-strown space that yawn interminably about this terrestrial grain of dust. "

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

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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. "

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" 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. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" 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. "

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

" I have concluded that Literature is no proper pursuit for a gentleman and that Writing ought never to be consider'd but as an elegant Accomplishment to be indulg'd in with infrequency and Discrimination. "

H. P. Lovecraft

" The sole ultimate factor in human decisions is physical force. This we must learn, however repugnant the idea may seem, if we are to protect ourselves and our institutions. Reliance on anything else is fallacious and ruinous. "

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

" The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination. "

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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. "

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" 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. "

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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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" Orthodox Christianity, by playing upon the emotions of man, is able to accomplish wonders toward keeping him in order and relieving his mind. It can frighten or cajole him away from evil more effectively than could reason. "

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" 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. "

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" 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

" Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts. "

H. P. Lovecraft