Quotes from H.P. Lovecraft

there was much breathless talk of new elements, bizarre optical properties, and other things which puzzled men of science are wont to say when faced by the unknown. Hot

The sorry planet-shell being well-nigh spent, in less than an hour my fellow would be free to pursue the oppressor along the Milky Way and past the hither stars to the very confines of infinity.

He said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours.

for the soapy, greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy.

I saw the body spread on that dank stone, And knew those things which feasted were not men; I knew this strange, grey world was not my own, But Yuggoth, past the starry voids—and then The body shrieked at me with a dead cry, And all too late I knew that it was I!

He maintained his new fastidiousness without interruption, added to it an unwonted sparkle of eye and crispness of speech, and began little by little to shed the corpulence which had so long deformed him.

And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much

DIES MIES JESCHET BOENE DOESEF DOUVEMA ENITEMAUS".

At times he actually did perform marvels of surgery for the soldiers; but his chief delights were of a less public and philanthropic kind, requiring many explanations of sounds which seemed peculiar even amidst that babel of the damned. Among these sounds were frequent revolver-shots - surely not uncommon on a battlefield, but distinctly uncommon in a hospital.

Popular authors do not and apparently cannot appreciate the fact that true art is obtainable only by rejecting normality and conventionality in toto, and approaching a theme purged utterly of any usual or preconceived point of view.

a new chill from afar out whither the condor had flown, as if my flesh had caught a horror before my eyes had seen it. Nor

As human beings, our only sensible scale of values is one based on the lessening of the agony of existence. That plan is most deserving of praise which most ably fosters the creation of the objects and con­ditions best adapted to diminish the pain of living for those most sen­sitive to its depressing ravages.

Podemos suponer que en la vida onírica, la materia y la vida, tal como se conocen tales cosas en la tierra, no resultan necesariamente constantes, y que el tiempo y el espacio no existen tal como lo entienden nuestros cuerpos de vigilia. a veces creo que la vida menos material es nuestra existencia real, y que nuestra vana estancia sobre este globo terráqueo resulta en sí misma un fenómeno secundario.

Meanwhile no more must be told. There was a secret which even torture could not extract. Mankind was not absolutely alone among the conscious things of earth, for shapes came out of the dark to visit the faithful few.

And always the shadow of nameless fear hung about the sealed trap-doors and the dark, windowless elder towers.

Awestruck at this unexpected glimpse into a past beyond the conception of the most daring anthropologist, I stood musing whilst the moon cast queer reflections on the silent channel before me.

The man of Truth is beyond good and evil," intoned a voice that was not a voice. "The man of Truth has ridden to All-Is-One. The man of Truth has learnt that Illusion is the only reality, and that substance is an impostor.

Lovecraft also likes to play with the idea of fate. In many of Lovecraft's stories the protagonist is not in control of his own actions but must follow the path of fate. Many of his characters would be free from danger if they were simply able to run away but this is not possible as the course of their fate must be followed.

The other gods! The other gods! The gods of the outer hells that guard the feeble gods of earth! . . . Look away! . . . Go back! . . . Do not see! . . . Do not see! . . . The vengeance of the infinite abysses . . . That cursed, that damnable pit . . . Merciful gods of earth, I am falling into the sky!

His drinking, of course, only aggravated what it was meant to alleviate.

Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days; and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget.

There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still to be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity.

As a result, these societies became surprisingly passive and reticent. Newspaper men were harder to manage, but seemed largely to coöperate with the government in the end.

but Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs.