The basis of all true cosmic horror is violation of the order of nature, and the profoundest violations are always the least concrete and describable.
The cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see.
Disintegration is quite painless, I assure you.
Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber, Past the wan-mooned abysses of night, I have lived o’er my lives without number, I have sounded all things with my sight.
Two widely dissimilar races, whether equal or not, cannot peaceably coexist in the same territory until they are either uniformly mongrelised or cast in folkways of permanent and traditional personal aloofness.
It must be remembered that there is no real reason to expect anything in particular from mankind; good and evil are local expedients – or their lack – and not in any sense cosmic truths or laws.
The dog is a peasant and the cat is a gentleman.
Most of my monsters fail altogether to satisfy my sense of the cosmic – the abnormally chromatic entity in “The Colour Out of Space” being the only one of the lot which I take any pride in.
Religion struck me so vague a thing at best, that I could perceive no advantage of any one system over any other.
Of what use is it to please the herd? They are simply coarse animals – for all that is admirable in man is the artificial product of special breeding.
Nothing really known can continue to be acutely fascinating.
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.
Good and evil and beauty and ugliness are only ornamental fruits of perspective, whose sole value lies in their linkage to what chance made our fathers think and feel, and whose finer details are different for every race and culture.
The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim alleys between them.
Zoologists seem to consider the cerebration of cats and dogs about 50-50 – but my respect always goes to the cool, sure, impersonal, delicately poised feline who minds his business and never slobbers.
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 glorious Dryden, refiner and purifier of English verse, did less for rhyme than he did for metre.
Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.
In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative.
The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth’s gods.
Naturally one would rather be a broad artist with power to evoke beauty from every phase of experience – but when one unmistakably isn’t such an artist, there’s no sense in bluffing and faking and pretending that one is.