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When Randolph Carter was thirty he lost the key of the gate of dreams.

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Nothing is really typical of my efforts... I'm simply casting about for better ways to crystallise and capture certain strong impressions (involving t...more

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Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.

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Damn it, it wasn’t quite fresh enough!

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Heaven knows where I'll end up - it's a safe bet I'll never be at the top of anything! Nor do I particularly care to be.

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its content. We live on a placid island of ignoranc...more

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Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed i...more

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As I shivered and brooded on the casting of that brain-blasting shadow, I knew that I had at last pried out one of earth's supreme horors-one of those...more

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A serious adult story must be true to something in life. Since marvel tales cannot be true to the events of life, they must shift their emphasis towar...more

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Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fa...more

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Only a cynic can create horror--for behind every masterpiece of the sort must reside a driving demonic force that despises the human race and its illu...more

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The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.

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By necessity practical and by philosophy stern, these folk were not beautiful in their sins.

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I have seen the dark universe yawningWhere the black planets roll without aim,Where they roll in their horror unheeded,Without knowledge, or lustre, o...more

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It might, too, have been the singular cold that alienated me; for such chilliness was abnormal on so hot a day, and the abnormal always excites aversi...more