Quotes from Edgar Rice Burroughs

I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later.

Traveling through space is stupifyingly monotonous.

Men were indeed more foolish and more cruel than the beasts of the jungle! How fortunate was he who lived in the peace and security of the great forest!

When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled, and smiles are the foundation of beauty.

They say that none of us exists, except in the imagination of his fellows, other than as an intangible, invisible mentality.

As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his lifelong enemy and, raising his eyes to the full moon, threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of his people.

Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass, don't you know.

Fortunate indeed are those in which there is combined a little good and a little bad, a little knowledge of many things outside their own callings, a capacity for love and a capacity for hate, for such as these can look with tolerance upon all, unbiased by the egotism of him whose head is so heavy on one side that all his brains run to that point.

Mine own people do not care for me, John Carter; I am too unlike them. It is a sad fate, since I must live my life amongst them.

I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, "Tarzan and the Lost Empire", there are 31 books on my list.

Death, only, renders hope futile.

Anger and hate against one we love steels our hearts, but contempt or pity leaves us silent and ashamed.

I loved her. I still love her, though I curse her in my sleep, so nearly one are love and hate, the two most powerful and devasting emotions that control man, nations, life.

To lose the only creature in all his world who ever had manifested love and affection for him was the greatest tragedy he had ever known.

Clothes therefore, must be the insignia of the superiority of man over all other animals, for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things

For me, temperance is essential to good work.

When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled, and smiles are the foundation of beauty.

It never seems to occur to some people, that, like beauty, a sense of humor may sometimes be fatal.