One Cannot Be Too Careful In The Selection Of Adjectives For Descriptions. Words Or Compounds Which Describe Precisely, And Which Convey Exactly The Right Suggestions To The Mind Of The Reader, Are Essential.
There Are Not Many Persons Who Know What Wonders Are Opened To Them In The Stories And Visions Of Their Youth; For When As Children We Listen And Dream, We Think But Half-formed Thoughts, And When As Men We Try To Remember, We Are Dulled And Prosaic With The Poison Of Life.
It Is Easy To Remove The Mind From Harping On The Lost Illusion Of Immortality. The Disciplined Intellect Fears Nothing And Craves No Sugar-plum At The Day's End, But Is Content To Accept Life And Serve Society As Best It May.
I Am Essentially A Recluse Who Will Have Very Little To Do With People Wherever He May Be. I Think That Most People Only Make Me Nervous - That Only By Accident, And In Extremely Small Quantities, Would I Ever Be Likely To Come Across People Who Wouldn't.
I Have No Illusions Concerning The Precarious Status Of My Tales And Do Not Expect To Become A Serious Competitor Of My Favorite Weird Authors.
I Am Well-nigh Resolv'd To Write No More Tales But Merely To Dream When I Have A Mind To, Not Stopping To Do Anything So Vulgar As To Set Down The Dream For A Boarish Publick.
The Real Lover Of Cats Is One Who Demands A Clearer Adjustment To The Universe Than Ordinary Household Platitudes Provide; One Who Refuses To Swallow The Sentimental Notion That All Good People Love Dogs, Children, And Horses While All Bad People Dislike And Are Disliked By Such.
I Have Concluded That Literature Is No Proper Pursuit For A Gentleman And That Writing Ought Never To Be Consider'd But As An Elegant Accomplishment To Be Indulg'd In With Infrequency And Discrimination.
The Reason Why Time Plays A Great Part In So Many Of My Tales Is That This Element Looms Up In My Mind As The Most Profoundly Dramatic And Grimly Terrible Thing In The Universe.
Horror And The Unknown Or The Strange Are Always Closely Connected So That It Is Hard To Create A Convincing Picture Of Shattered Natural Law Or Cosmic Alienage Or 'Outsideness' Without Laying Stress On The Emotion Of Fear.
Write Out The Story - Rapidly, Fluently, And Not Too Critically - Following The Second Or Narrative-order Synopsis. Change Incidents And Plot Whenever The Developing Process Seems To Suggest Such Change, Never Being Bound By Any Previous Design.
In Writing A Weird Story, I Always Try Very Carefully To Achieve The Right Mood And Atmosphere And Place The Emphasis Where It Belongs.
There Are, I Think, Four Distinct Types Of Weird Story: One Expressing A Mood Or Feeling, Another Expressing A Pictorial Conception, A Third Expressing A General Situation, Condition, Legend Or Intellectual Conception, And A Fourth Explaining A Definite Tableau Or Specific Dramatic Situation Or Climax.
Even When The Characters Are Supposed To Be Accustomed To The Wonder, I Try To Weave An Air Of Awe And Impressiveness Corresponding To What The Reader Should Feel. A Casual Style Ruins Any Serious Fantasy.
Atmosphere, Not Action, Is The Great Desideratum Of Weird Fiction. Indeed, All That A Wonder Story Can Ever Be Is A Vivid Picture Of A Certain Type Of Human Mood.
The 'Punch' Of A Truly Weird Tale Is Simply Some Violation Or Transcending Of Fixed Cosmic Law - An Imaginative Escape From Palling Reality - Hence, Phenomena Rather Than Persons Are The Logical 'Heroes.'
Searchers After Horror Haunt Strange, Far Places.
Horrors, I Believe, Should Be Original - The Use Of Common Myths And Legends Being A Weakening Influence.
It Is Only The Forcible Propagation Of Conventional Christianity That Makes The Agnostic So Bitter Toward The Church. He Knows That All The Doctrines Cannot Possibly Be True, But He Would View Them With Toleration If He Were Asked Merely To Let Them Alone For The Benefit Of The Masses Whom They Can Help And Succour.
Orthodox Christianity, By Playing Upon The Emotions Of Man, Is Able To Accomplish Wonders Toward Keeping Him In Order And Relieving His Mind. It Can Frighten Or Cajole Him Away From Evil More Effectively Than Could Reason.
Indeed, There Is Much In Pure Humanitarian Culture, As Opposed To Rigid Scientific Training, Which Encourages Absorption In The Affairs Of Mankind, And More Or Less Indifference To The Unfathomed Abysses Of Star-strown Space That Yawn Interminably About This Terrestrial Grain Of Dust.
Truth Is Of No Practical Value To Mankind Save As It Affects Terrestrial Phenomena, Hence The Discoveries Of Science Should Be Concealed Or Glossed Over Wherever They Conflict With Orthodoxy.
Fear Is Our Deepest And Strongest Emotion, And The One Which Best Lends Itself To The Creation Of Nature-defying Illusions.
Nothing Is Really Typical Of My Efforts... I'm Simply Casting About For Better Ways To Crystallise And Capture Certain Strong Impressions (Involving The Elements Of Time, The Unknown, Cause And Effect, Fear, Scenic And Architectural Beauty, And Other Seemingly Ill-assorted Things) Which Persist In Clamouring For Expression.
One Can Never Produce Anything As Terrible And Impressive As One Can Awesomely Hint About.
The Earliest English Attempts At Rhyming Probably Included Words Whose Agreement Is So Slight That It Deserves The Name Of Mere 'Assonance' Rather Than That Of Actual Rhyme.
The Monotony Of A Long Heroic Poem May Often Be Pleasantly Relieved By Judicious Interruptions In The Perfect Succession Of Rhymes, Just As The Metre May Sometimes Be Adorned With Occasional Triplets And Alexandrines.
But More Wonderful Than The Lore Of Old Men And The Lore Of Books Is The Secret Lore Of Ocean.
Man's Respect For The Imponderables Varies According To His Mental Constitution And Environment. Through Certain Modes Of Thought And Training, It Can Be Elevated Tremendously, Yet There Is Always A Limit.
The Man Or Nation Of High Culture May Acknowledge To Great Lengths The Restraints Imposed By Conventions And Honour, But Beyond A Certain Point, Primitive Will Or Desire Cannot Be Curbed.
Denied Anything Ardently Desired, The Individual Or State Will Argue And Parley Just So Long - Then, If The Impelling Motive Be Sufficiently Great, Will Cast Aside Every Rule And Break Down Every Acquired Inhibition, Plunging Viciously After The Object Wished; All The More Fantastically Savage Because Of Previous Repression.
The Sole Ultimate Factor In Human Decisions Is Physical Force. This We Must Learn, However Repugnant The Idea May Seem, If We Are To Protect Ourselves And Our Institutions. Reliance On Anything Else Is Fallacious And Ruinous.
We Call Ourselves A Dog's 'Master' - But Who Ever Dared To Call Himself The 'Master' Of A Cat? We Own A Dog - He Is With Us As A Slave And Inferior Because We Wish Him To Be. But We Entertain A Cat - He Adorns Our Hearth As A Guest, Fellow-lodger, And Equal Because He Wishes To Be There.
It Is No Compliment To Be The Stupidly Idolised Master Of A Dog Whose Instinct It Is To Idolise, But It Is A Very Distinct Tribute To Be Chosen As The Friend And Confidant Of A Philosophic Cat Who Is Wholly His Own Master And Could Easily Choose Another Companion If He Found Such An One More Agreeable And Interesting.
Children, Old Crones, Peasants, And Dogs Ramble; Cats And Philosophers Stick To Their Point.
The End Of A Story Must Be Stronger Rather Than Weaker Than The Beginning, Since It Is The End Which Contains The Denouement Or Culmination And Which Will Leave The Strongest Impression Upon The Reader.
All Attempts At Gaining Literary Polish Must Begin With Judicious Reading, And The Learner Must Never Cease To Hold This Phase Uppermost. In Many Cases, The Usage Of Good Authors Will Be Found A More Effective Guide Than Any Amount Of Precept.
It Would Not Be Amiss For The Novice To Write The Last Paragraph Of His Story First, Once A Synopsis Of The Plot Has Been Carefully Prepared - As It Always Should Be.
One Superlatively Important Effect Of Wide Reading Is The Enlargement Of Vocabulary Which Always Accompanies It.
What A Man Does For Pay Is Of Little Significance. What He Is, As A Sensitive Instrument Responsive To The World's Beauty, Is Everything!
Never Should An Unfamiliar Word Be Passed Over Without Elucidation, For, With A Little Conscientious Research, We May Each Day Add To Our Conquests In The Realm Of Philology And Become More And More Ready For Graceful Independent Expression.
That Metre Itself Forms An Essential Part Of All True Poetry Is A Principle Which Not Even The Assertions Of An Aristotle Or The Pronouncements Of A Plato Can Disestablish.
Plots May Be Simple Or Complex, But Suspense, And Climactic Progress From One Incident To Another, Are Essential. Every Incident In A Fictional Work Should Have Some Bearing On The Climax Or Denouement, And Any Denouement Which Is Not The Inevitable Result Of The Preceding Incidents Is Awkward And Unliterary.
The Appeal Of The Spectrally Macabre Is Generally Narrow Because It Demands From The Reader A Certain Degree Of Imagination And A Capacity For Detachment From Everyday Life.
Certain Of Poe's Tales Possess An Almost Absolute Perfection Of Artistic Form Which Makes Them Veritable Beacon-lights In The Province Of The Short Story.
Cosmic Terror Appears As An Ingredient Of The Earliest Folklore Of All Races And Is Crystallised In The Most Archaic Ballads, Chronicles, And Sacred Writings.
From My Experience, I Cannot Doubt But That Man, When Lost To Terrestrial Consciousness, Is Indeed Sojourning In Another And Uncorporeal Life Of Far Different Nature From The Life We Know; And Of Which Only The Slightest And Most Indistinct Memories Linger After Waking.
Science, Already Oppressive With Its Shocking Revelations, Will Perhaps Be The Ultimate Exterminator Of Our Human Species - If Separate Species We Be - For Its Reserve Of Unguessed Horrors Could Never Be Borne By Mortal Brains If Loosed Upon The World.