Quotes by H.P. Lovecraft

“I neither knew nor cared whether my experience was insanity, dreaming, or magic; but was determined to gaze on brilliance and gaiety at any cost.”

“Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.”

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.”

“Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.”

“That's because only a real artist knows the actual anatomy of the terrible or the physiology of fear - the exact sort of lines and proportions that connect up with latent instincts or hereditary me...”

“I was nearly unnerved at my proximity to a nameless thing at the bottom of a pit.”

“It might, too, have been the singular cold that alienated me; for such chilliness was abnormal on so hot a day, and the abnormal always excites aversion, distrust, and fear.”

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

“Contrary to what you may assume, I am not a pessimist but an indifferentist- that is, I don't make the mistake of thinking that the... cosmos... gives a damn one way or the other about the especial...”

“All life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other.”

“We all know that any emotional bias -- irrespective of truth or falsity -- can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are a...”

“You have been my friend in the cosmos; you have been my only friend on this planet - the only soul to sense and seek for me within the repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again -...”

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,And with strange aeons even death may die.”

“In search of Truth the hopeful zealot goes,But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!”

“Religion is still useful among the herd - that it helps their orderly conduct as nothing else could. The crude human animal is in-eradicably superstitious, and there is every biological reason why ...”

“Well did the traveler know those garden lands that lie betwixt the wood of the Cerenerian Sea, and blithely did he follow the singing river Oukranos that marked his course. The sun rose higher over...”

“A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, ...”

“If we knew what we are, we should do as Sir Arthur Jermyn did; and Arthur Jermyn soaked himself in oil and set first to his clothing one night.”

“Down through this verdant land Carter walked at evening, and saw twilight float up from the river to the marvelous golden spires of Thran. And just at the hour of dusk he came to the southern gate,...”

“By noon Carter reached the jasper terraces of Kiran which slope down to the river's edge and bear that temple of loveliness wherein the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far realm on the twilight sea...”