Quotes from Robert E. Howard

up in the glade, and notch an arrow.

It was a convulsion of obscenity, a spasm of lasciviousness – an exudation of secret hungers framed by compulsion: desire without pleasure, pain mated awfully to lust. It was like watching a soul stripped naked, and all its dark and unmentionable secrets laid bare.

Each smiled and nodded courteously, and each knew the other lied.

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horse's feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. – The Road of Kings.

A civilized man in his position would have sought doubtful refuge in the conclusion that he was insane; it did not occur to the Cimmerian to doubt his senses. He knew he was face to face with a demon of the Elder World, and the realization robbed him of all his faculties except sight.

It's a mad nightmare,' I muttered.

Arus the watchman grasped his crossbow with shaky hands, and he felt beads of clammy perspiration on his skin as he stared at the unlovely corpse sprawling on the polished floor before him. It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.

Por que la única arma del hombre es ese coraje que no retrocede ni ante las mismisimas puertas del Infierno y ante el cual nada pueden ni siquiera las legiones infernales.

their squat-walled cities were drenched in blood.

Wenn das Leben eine Illusion ist, dann bin ich es nicht weniger, und somit ist die Illusion für mich Wirklichkeit.

Blast your soul, you hussy!" he exclaimed in exasperation.

Crom!" muttered the Cimmerian. "Here is the grandfather of all parrots. He must be a thousand years old! Look at the evil wisdom of his eyes. What mysteries do you guard, Wise Devil?" Abruptly the bird spread its flaming wings and soaring from its perch, cried out harshly: "Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!" and with a wild screech of horribly human laughter, rushed away through the trees to vanish in the opalescent shadows.

The gods of yesterday become the devils of tomorrow.

Civilizirani ljudi neugodniji su od divljaka zato Å¡to znaju da mogu biti nepristojni, a da im zbog toga netko ne raspolovi glavu.

The wild hetman stood like a statue for a space, dimly grasping something of the cosmic tragedy of the fitful ephemera called mankind and the hooded shapes of darkness which prey upon it.

I can say with confidence that no man, however mature, ever loved reading for its own sake more than I. I did not read because of any particular urge for learning, or to merely pass the time, or to escape the realities of life. I read simply because I loved reading for its own sake alone. The printed page was like wine to me."—Robert E. Howard (from One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis)

You can not prove that Fascism is anything but a sordid, retrogressive despotism, which crushes the individual liberty and strangles the intellectual life of every country it inflicts with its slimy presence … and Fascism is nothing but a new fad-name for industrial tyranny … the Fascist movement in America is nothing but a move on the part of the money-barons to establish themselves more firmly than ever, to stamp out the last vestige of freedom in the people beneath them

The moon rose, striking fire from the Cimmerian's horned helmet. No call awoke the echoes; yet suddenly the night grew tense and the jungle held its breath. Instinctively Conan loosened the great sword in its sheath.

Solomon Kane stood forth alone, grim man of a somber race: "Worthy of death he well may be, but the court ye held was a mockery, "Ye hid your spite in a travesty where Justice hid her face. "More of the man had ye been, on deck your sword to cleanly draw "Inforthright fury from its sheath, and openly cleave him to the teeth -- "Rather than slink and hide beneath a hollow word of Law.

Stand up naked in the storm! Shake back your mane and face the thunders and the giant winds that roar between the worlds. Face the rush of events, the gigantic Truths, the dizzying realities. Be one with the tempests, the roaring ocean, and the swirling constellations. A Thunder of Trumpets

Then he shrieked. In his hand the wooden shaft suddenly writhed. Its rigid outline became pliant, melting in his grasp. He tried to throw it from him, but it was too late. He held a living serpent in his naked hand, and already it had coiled about his wrist and its wicked wedge-shaped head darted at his muscular arm. He screamed again and his eyes became distended, his features purple. He went to his knees shaken by an awful convulsion, and then lay still.

Did you deem yourself strong because you were able to twist the heads off civilised folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong.

Their chief is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?

Conan stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties which demoralizes anyone who is confronted by an impossible negation of sanity.