H. P. LOVECRAFT QUOTES
American author (1890-1937)
Mid-summer ... when the alchemy of Nature transmutes the sylvan landscape to one vivid and almost homogeneous mass of green; when the senses are well-nigh intoxicated with the surging seas of moist verdure and the subtly indefinable odours of the soil and the vegetation. In such surroundings the mind loses its perspective; time and space become trivial and unreal, and echoes of a forgotten prehistoric past beat insistently upon the enthralled consciousness.
H. P. Lovecraft
"The Tomb"
Religion itself is an absurdity and an anomaly, and paganism is acceptable only because it represents that purely orgiastic phase of religion farthest from reality.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Call of Cthulhu"
I am perfectly confident that I could never adequately convey to any other human being the precise reasons why I continue to refrain from suicide--the reasons, that is, why I still find existence enough of a compensation to atone for its dominantly burthensome quality.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to August Derleth, December 25, 1930
Wise men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Hypnos"
In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Ex Oblivione"
It is good to be a cynic -- it is better to be a contented cat -- and it is best not to exist at all.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Nietzscheism and Realism"
I love to dream, but I never try to dream and think at the same time.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Woodburn Harris, February/March 1929
The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind--yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Natalie H. Wooley, May 2, 1936
The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth's gods.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Other Gods"
The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Pickman's Model"
You see them? You see the things that float and flop about you and through you ever moment of your life? You see the creatures that form what men call the pure air and the blue sky? Have I not succeeded in breaking down the barrier; have I not shown you worlds that no other living men have seen?
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"From Beyond"
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
Supernatural Horror in Literature
Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"From Beyond", The Fantasy Fan, June 1934
All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Robert E. Howard, August 16, 1932
As for the Republicans -- how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, [and] steel their emotions against decent human sympathy.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to C. L. Moore, August 1936
If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Temple"
Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Herbert West: Re-Animator"
Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
attributed, Telling It Like It Is
To be bitter is to attribute intent and personality to the formless, infinite, unchanging and unchangeable void. We drift on a chartless, resistless sea. Let us sing when we can, and forget the rest.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
Selected Letters