Quotes from Robert E. Howard

They realize their ultimate doom, but they are fatalists, incapable of resistance or escape. Not one of the present generation has been out of sight of these walls.

Then, since all great poets are strange in their speech and actions, he must have achieved great fame, for his actions and conversations were the strangest of any man I ever knew.

Nay, alone I am a weak creature, having no strength or might in me; yet in times past hath God made me a great vessel of wrath and a sword of deliverance. And I trust, shall do so again.

That's the way with civilized men. When they can't explain something by their half-baked science, they refuse to believe it.

Someday, when all your civilization and science are likewise swept away, your kind will pray for a man with a sword.

I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply.

When the oceans drown the world, women will take time for jealousy.

They trapped the Lion on Shamu's plain; They weighted his limbs with an iron chain; They cried aloud in the trumpet-blast, They cried, "The lion is caged at last!" Woe to the Cities of river and plain If ever the Lion stalks again! —Old Ballad.

Damned be the dark ends of the earth where old horrors live again.

If I was wealthy I'd never do anything but poke around in ruined cities all over the world - and probably get snake-bit.

The tall Khitan lifted his head and gazed at Publio, so that the merchant broke into a profuse sweat. "What do you wish of me?" he stuttered. "A ship," answered the Khitan. "A ship well manned for a long voyage." "For how long a voyage?" stammered Publio, never thinking of refusing. "To the ends of the world, perhaps," answered the Khitan, "or to the molten seas of hell that lie beyond the sunrise.

Barbarism is the natural state of mankind," the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. "Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.

They take little interest in waking life, choosing to lie most of the time in death-like sleep." "Then

It is the individual mainly which draws me—the struggling, blundering, passionate insect vainly striving against the river of Life and seeking to divert the channel of events to suit himself—breaking his fangs on the iron collar of Fate and sinking into final defeat with the froth of a curse on his lips

A pantherish twist and shift of his body avoided the blundering rush of two yellow swordsmen, and the blade of one missing its objective, was sheathed in the breast of the other. A

He was like a tiger among baboons as he leaped, side-stepped and spun, offering an ever-moving target, while his ax wove a shining wheel of death about him. For

The man slumped forward on the table. "Saints and devils!" raged the Wolf. "What does he look like, this Kane?" "Like – Satan –" The voice trailed off in silence. The dead man slid from the table to lie in a red heap upon the floor. "Like Satan!" babbled the other bandit. "I told you! 'Tis the Horned One himself! I tell you –

Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future.

I am Solomon Kane." The voice was resonant and powerful. "Are you prepared to meet your God?" "Why, Monsieur," Le Loup answered, bowing, "I assure you I am as ready as I ever will be. I might ask Monsieur the same question." "No doubt I stated my inquiry wrongly," Kane said grimly. "I will change it: Are you prepared to meet your master, the Devil?

Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn.

You left the fort before daybreak, I was told," he said to Conan. "I had begun to fear that the Picts had caught you at last." "When they smoke my head the whole river will know," grunted Conan. "They'll hear Pictish women wailing their dead as far as Velitrium—I was on a lone scout. I couldn't sleep. I kept hearing drums talking across the river.

When you allow the elevation of a man, one can be sure that you'll profit by his advancement.

Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.

Men spoke of tribal war, of a gathering of vultures in the southeast, and a terrible leader who led his swiftly increasing hordes to victory.