It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known the tread of a human foot.
I’m not going out of my way looking for devils; but I wouldn’t step out of my path to let one go by.
How can I wear the harness of toil And sweat at the daily round, While in my soul forever The drums of Pictdom sound?
Aye, you white dog, you are like all your race; but to a black man gold can never pay for blood.
Man is better without knowledge of things to come, for what is to be will be, and man can neither avert nor hasten. It is better to go in the dark when the road must pass a lion and there is no other road.
It is an ill thing to meet a man you thought dead in the woodland at dusk.
It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.
Life is but a web spun of ghosts and dreams and illusions.
A woman in such an emotional tempest is as perilous as a blind cobra to any about her.
My body seems a mere encumbrance to me; an imbecillic wagon, hitched to the horse of desire, which is the soul.
The only safe enemy was a headless enemy.
I see in the papers where Roy Guthrie committed suicide. Why, I wonder?
The printed page was like wine to me.
I am unable to rouse much interest in any highly civilized race, country or epoch, including this one.
Youngsters of this generation seem not quite so hazardous except in the way of mechanical speed, bad liquor and venereal diseases.
I’ll say one thing about an oil boom; it will teach a kid that Life’s a pretty rotten thing as quick as anything I can think of.
If I was wealthy I’d never do anything but poke around in ruined cities all over the world – and probably get snake-bit.
The poem you sent me was as fiery and virile as anything you’ve ever written – or anybody else, for that matter. Especially the second part went to my brain like the flaming liquor of insanity. No one else besides Jack London has the power to move me just that way.
What shall a man say when a friend has vanished behind the doors of Death? A mere tangle of barren words, only words.
We’re making tin gods out of those poor buffoons in Hollywood; I dote on movies and appreciate the scanty art therein but I consider the profession about the most debased and debasing I know.