A biography for H. P. Lovecrafthasn’t been written yet.
“Adulthood is hell.”
“If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.”
“Horrors, I believe, should be original - the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence.”
“The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
“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.”
“Children, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point.”
“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.”
“But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.”
“I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors.”
“We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.”
“Of our relation to all creation we can never know anything whatsoever. All is immensity and chaos. But, since all this knowledge of our limitations cannot possibly be of any value to us, it is better to ignore it in our daily conduct of life.”
“In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.”
“Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.”
“I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.”
“The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”
“From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.”
“I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.”