Fantasy Authors

"You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day."

"Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego."

"For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it."

"To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil."

"There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only."

"Strive not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style."

"To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand."

"If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they."

"O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain To get by giving what you lost by gain."

"There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust." "There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must."

"The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another."

"If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it."

"When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward."

"We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect."

"A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else."

"The virtues chose Modesty to be their queen. "I did not know that I was a virtue," she said. "Why did you not choose Innocence?" "Because of her ignorance," they replied. "She knows nothing but that she is a virtue.""

"The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity."

"Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps."

"The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon."

"The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money."

"A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links."

"He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity."

"Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded."

"The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain "—that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain"—that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him."

"Convictions are variable; to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest."

"The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself."

"The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect."

"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."

"Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain."

"Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it."

"When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had."

"Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered."

"Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!"

"To the eye of failure success is an accident."

"While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide."

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

"The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men — were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended."

"For there be divers sorts of death—some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly occurreth only in solitude (such is God's will) and, none seeing the end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long journey—which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, as abundant testimony showeth. In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigor for many years. Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where the body did decay."

"On every side of me stretched a bleak and desolate expanse of plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of sere grass, which rustled and whistled in the ​autumn wind with heaven knows what mysterious and disquieting suggestion. Protruded at long intervals above it, stood strangely shaped and somber-colored rocks, which seemed to have an understanding with one another and to exchange looks of uncomfortable significance, as if they had reared their heads to watch the issue of some foreseen event. A few blasted trees here and there appeared as leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation."

"This stone had apparently marked the ​grave out of which the tree had sprung ages ago. The tree's exacting roots had robbed the grave and made the stone a prisoner. A sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and twigs from the uppermost face of the stone; I saw the low-relief letters of an inscription and bent to read it. God in Heaven! my name in full! — the date of my birth! — the date of my death! A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as I sprang to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in the rosy east. I stood between the tree and his broad red disk — no shadow darkened the trunk! A chorus of howling wolves saluted the dawn. I saw them sitting on their haunches, singly and in groups, on the summits of irregular mounds and tumuli filling a half of my desert prospect and extending to the horizon. And then I knew that these were ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa."

"Peyton Fahrquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge."

"Haïta told him all: how thrice he had met the radiant maid, and thrice she had left him forlorn. He related minutely all that had passed between them, omitting no word of what had been said. When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, then said: "My son, I have attended to thy story, and I know the maiden. I have myself seen her, as have many. Know, then, that her name, which she would not even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man can not fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any time before she fled?" "Only a single instant," answered Haïta, ​blushing with shame at the confession. "Each time I drove her away in one moment." "Unfortunate youth " said the holy hermit, "but for thine indiscretion thou mightst have had her for two.""

"True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked "Unknown," and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in "honoring the memory" of him of whom no memory remains to honor; but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical."

"The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling."

"There are sounds that we cannot hear. At either end of the scale are notes that stir ​no chord of that imperfect instrument, the human ear. They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an entire tree-top — the tops of several trees — and all in full song. Suddenly — in a moment — at absolutely the same instant all spring into the air and fly away. How? They could not all see one another—whole tree-tops intervened. At no point could a leader have been visible to all. There must have been a signal of warning or command, high and shrill above the din, but by me unheard. I have observed, too, the same simultaneous flight when all were silent, among not only blackbirds, but other birds — quail, for example, widely separated by bushes —even on opposite sides of a hill. It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between, will sometimes dive at the same instant — all gone out of sight in a moment. The signal has been sounded — too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and his comrades on the deck — who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred by the bass of the organ. As with sounds, so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum the chemist can detect the presence of what are known as 'actinic' rays. They represent colors—integral colors in the composition of light—which we are unable to discern. The human eye is an imperfect instrument; its range is but a few octaves of the real “chromatic scale.” I am not mad; there are colors that we cannot see. And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such a color!"

"Mark how my fame rings out from zone to zone: A thousand critics shouting: "He's unknown!""

"Study Herod, madame, study Herod."

"This is a simple story of a battle; such a tale as may be told by a soldier who is no writer to a reader who is no soldier."

"An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching."

"Hidden in hollows and behind clumps of rank brambles were large tents, dimly lighted with candles, but looking comfortable. The kind of comfort they supplied was indicated by pairs of men entering and reappearing, bearing litters; by low moans from within and by long rows of dead with covered faces outside. These tents were constantly receiving the wounded, yet were never full; they were continually ejecting the dead, yet were never empty. It was as if the helpless had been carried in and murdered, that they might not hamper those whose business it was to fall to-morrow."