Quotes by Robert E. Howard

“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”

“I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice an...”

“Over the souls of men spread the condor wings of colossal monsters and all manner of evil things prey upon the heart and soul and body of Man. Yet it may be in some far day the shadows shall fade a...”

“Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms ...”

“The Lion banner sways and falls in the horror-haunted gloom;A scarlet Dragon rustles by, borne on winds of doom.In heaps the shining horsemen lie, where the thrusting lances break,And deep in the h...”

“How can I wear the harness of toilAnd sweat at the daily round,While in my soul foreverThe drums of Pictdom sound?”

“What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;R...”

“Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divineYou gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine.The throne that I won by blood and sweat , by Crom, I will not sellFor pro...”

“It is only the promise of death that makes life worth living.”

“Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth und...”

“Time and times are but cogwheels, unmatched, grinding on oblivious to one another. Occasionally - oh, very rarely! - the cogs fit; the pieces of the plot snap together momentarily and give men fain...”

“All fledall done, so lift me on the pyreThe Feast is over, and the lamps expire.”

“It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man...”

“Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph”

“My characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They're rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the a...”

“The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!”

“Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine—You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine.The throne that I won by blood and sweat , by Crom, I will not sellFor pr...”

“All fled—all done, so lift me on the pyre—The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.”

“The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!”

“Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.Men shall die for thi...”