incurable lover of the grotesque H. P. Lovecraft More Quotes by H. P. Lovecraft More Quotes From H. P. Lovecraft I can look back . . . at two distinct periods of opinion whose foundations I have successively come to distrust - a period before 1919 or so, when the weight of classic authority unduly influenced me, and another period from 1919 to about 1925, when I placed too high a value on the elements of revolt, florid colour, and emotional extravagance or intensity. H. P. Lovecraft foundation emotional two Thus I began my systematic though half-bewildered tour of Innsmouth's narrow, shadow-blighted ways. Crossing the bridge and turning toward the roar of the lower falls, I passed close to the Marsh refinery, which seemed to be oddly free from the noise of industry. The building stood on the steep river bluff near a bridge and an open confluence of streets which I took to be the earliest civic center, displaced after the Revolution by the present Town Square. H. P. Lovecraft squares bridges fall Good art means the ability of any one man to pin down in some permanent and intelligible medium a sort of idea of what he sees in Nature that nobody else sees. In other words, to make the other fellow grasp, through skilled selective care in interpretative reproduction or symbolism, some inkling of what only the artist himself could possibly see in the actual objective scene itself. H. P. Lovecraft men mean art Though not a participant in the Business of life; I am, like the character of Addison and Steele, an impartial (or more or less impartial) Spectator, who finds not a little recreation in watching the antics of those strange and puny puppets called men. H. P. Lovecraft character men life The poetical tendency of the present and of the preceding century has been divided in a manner singularly curious. One loud and conspicuous faction of bards, giving way to the corrupt influences of a decaying general culture, seems to have abandoned all the properties of versification and reason in its mad scramble after sensational novelty; whilst the other and quieter school constituting a more logical evolution from the poesy of the Georgian period, demands an accuracy of rhyme and metre unknown even to the polished artists of the age of Pope. H. P. Lovecraft mad artist school I am distinctly opposed to visibly arrogant and arbitrary extremes of government--but this is simply because I wish the safety of an artistic and intellectual civilisation to be secure, not because I have any sympathy with the coarse-grained herd who would menace the civilisation if not placated by sops. H. P. Lovecraft safety government intellectual Because we remember pain and the menace of death more vividly than pleasure, and because our feelings toward the beneficent aspects of the unknown have from the first been captured and formalised by conventional religious rituals, it has fallen to the lot of the darker and more maleficent side of cosmic mystery to figure chiefly in our popular supernatural folklore. H. P. Lovecraft pain religious feelings Religion itself is an absurdity and an anomaly, and paganism is acceptable only because it represents that purely orgiastic phase of religion farthest from reality. H. P. Lovecraft phases anomalies reality 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. H. P. Lovecraft choose friend own dog Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions. H. P. Lovecraft best creation emotion fear Cats are the runes of beauty, invincibility, wonder, pride, freedom, coldness, self-sufficiency, and dainty individuality - the qualities of sensitive, enlightened, mentally developed, pagan, cynical, poetic, philosophic, dispassionate, reserved, independent, Nietzschean, unbroken, civilised, master-class men. H. P. Lovecraft cats freedom beauty men We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. H. P. Lovecraft live island black ignorance It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude. H. P. Lovecraft solitude silence darkness mistake It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests. H. P. Lovecraft alone black peace life 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. H. P. Lovecraft good love children people One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about. H. P. Lovecraft anything never impressive terrible Children, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point. H. P. Lovecraft dogs old cats children The cat is classic whilst the dog is Gothic - nowhere in the animal world can we discover such really Hellenic perfection of form, with anatomy adapted to function, as in the felidae. H. P. Lovecraft perfection dog animal world Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience. H. P. Lovecraft place genuine experience imagination Adulthood is hell. H. P. Lovecraft adulthood hell
