"The ‘experimental’ writer, then, is simply following the story’s commands to the best of his human ability. The writer is not the story, the story is ...












No more worlds like this / No more days like that
More Thomas Ligotti quotes
"The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment. And only this condition of vicious insight ...
"Best-selling horror fiction is indeed necessarily conservative because it must entertain a large number of readers. It’s like network television. I’m ...
"To Eden with me you will not leaveTo live in a cottage of crazy, crooked eaves.In your own happy home you take care these nights; When you let your li...
"When I first read Lovecraft around 1971, and even more so when I began to read about his life, I immediately knew that I wanted to write horror storie...
"Forsake the world and cling to the shadows.
"The only value of this world lay in its power - at certain times - to suggest another world.
"Life is a nightmare that leaves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real.
"And one thing we know is real: horror. It is so real, in fact, that we cannot be sure it could not exist without us. Yes, it needs our imaginations an...
"Compassion for human hurt, a humble sense of our impermanence, an absolute valuation of justice—all of our so-called virtues only trouble us and serve...
"Compassion for human hurt, a humble sense of our impermanence, an absolute valuation of justice—all of our so-called virtues only trouble us and serve...
"When the world uncovers some dark disguise,Embrace the darkness with averted eyes.
"While horror may make us squirm or quake, it will not make us cry at the pity of things. The vampire may symbolize our horror of both life and death, ...
"So it is that supernatural horror is the product of a profoundly divided species of being. It is not the pastime of even our closest relations in the ...
"Once and for all, let us speak the paradox aloud: "We have been force-fed for so long the shudders of a thousand graveyards that at last, seeking a ma...