Menu

 Authors
A B C D E F
G H I J K L
M N O P Q R
S T U V W S
Y Z
Get Socialize
My Account
Make Free Wallpaper

8803 Writer Quotes

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.

Authors Become Competitor Concerning
  Favorite Make wallpaper

I could not write about 'ordinary people' because I am not in the least interested in them.

About Am Because Could
  Favorite Make wallpaper
I do not think that any realism is beautiful.
Any Beautiful Realism Think
  Favorite Make wallpaper

My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.

Absolutely Am Bored Come
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Am Anything Down Dream
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Accomplishment Concluded Discrimination Elegant
  Favorite Make wallpaper

All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.

Decrease Happiness Human Human Happiness
  Favorite Make wallpaper

It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude.

Associated Darkness Fancy Horror
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Dramatic Element Great Great Part
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Any Being Bound Change
  Favorite Make wallpaper

In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.

Achieve Always Atmosphere Belongs
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Accustomed Air Any Awe
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Action Atmosphere Certain Ever
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.'

Cosmic Escape Fixed Hence
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Horrors, I believe, should be original - the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence.

Be Original Being Believe Common
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.

Fanatics Few Marked Minds
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Able Accomplish Away Christianity
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Affects Concealed Conflict Discoveries
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Of our relation to all creation we can never know anything whatsoever. All is immensity and chaos. But, since all this knowledge of our limitations cannot possibly be of any value to us, it is better to ignore it in our daily conduct of life.

Any Anything Better Cannot
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.

Experience Genuine Imagination Often
  Favorite Make wallpaper

I am not very proud of being an human being; in fact, I distinctly dislike the species in many ways. I can readily conceive of beings vastly superior in every respect.

Am Being Beings Conceive
  Favorite Make wallpaper

One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about.

About Anything Hint Impressive
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Actual Agreement Attempts Deserves
  Favorite Make wallpaper

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.

Heroic Interruptions Judicious Just
  Favorite Make wallpaper

We should perceive that man's period of historical existence, a period so short that his physical constitution has not been altered in the slightest degree, is insufficient to allow of any considerable mental change.

Allow Altered Any Been
  Favorite Make wallpaper

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Aim Endless Hence Imaginary
  Favorite Make wallpaper
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
Better Better Time Having Immorality
  Favorite Make wallpaper
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
Conscience Inner Inner Voice Looking
  Favorite Make wallpaper

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

Around Coffin Cynic Flowers
  Favorite Make wallpaper

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Courtroom Evidence Hear Jail
  Favorite Make wallpaper

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Beautiful Children Extent Fellow
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

Any Communism Largely Like
  Favorite Make wallpaper

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

Believe Hard His Know
  Favorite Make wallpaper

It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.

Board Easy God Gods
  Favorite Make wallpaper

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

Crazier Crazy Device Ignorant
  Favorite Make wallpaper
God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Afraid Audience Comedian God
  Favorite Make wallpaper

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Cynics Nine Out Right
  Favorite Make wallpaper
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
Criticism Made Plausible Prejudice
  Favorite Make wallpaper

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

Above Complex Else Emotion
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Art Cage Circus Democracy
  Favorite Make wallpaper

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

After Depart Ever Eye
  Favorite Make wallpaper

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

About Basic Bore Endless
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Another Delusion Differs Love
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.

About Afterwards Average Before
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.

About Bachelors Know Married
  Favorite Make wallpaper
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
Fool He Know Man
  Favorite Make wallpaper

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.

Another Better Better Time Die
  Favorite Make wallpaper

No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.

Drink Genuinely Happy He
  Favorite Make wallpaper

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

Avoid Catholic Chemistry Forbidden
  Favorite Make wallpaper

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Also Better Cabbage Idealist
  Favorite Make wallpaper