Robert E. Howard Quotes

Emma turned her head and watched it happen, and the sight filled her nightmares for the rest of her life. The tear began at the back of Suzi’s neck, where the bone of her skull met her spine. The skin there broke loose all at once, as though it had snapped, and the meat inside pulled away from itself in long loose strings. The cartilage of Suzi’s spine popped loose like an empty hose, and the veins and pipes in the front of her neck pulled away from her head like they weren’t even attached anymore.

Not for naught had he gained access into darksome cults, had harkened to the grisly whispers of the votaries of Skelos under midnight trees, and read the forbidden iron-bound books of Vathelos the Blind.

"I can say with confidence that no man, however mature, ever loved reading for its own sake more than I. I did not read because of any particular urge for learning, or to merely pass the time, or to escape the realities of life. I read simply because I loved reading for its own sake alone. The printed page was like wine to me." — Robert E. Howard (from One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis)

The King is only a slave like yourself, locked with heavier chains.

If this myth of the harpies were a reality, what of the other legends—the Hydra, the centaurs, the chimera, Medusa, Pan and the satyrs? All those myths of antiquity—behind them did there lie and lurk nightmare realities with slavering fangs and talons steeped in shuddersome evil? Africa, the Dark Continent, land of shadows and horror, of bewitchment and sorcery, into which all evil things had been banished before the growing light of the western world!

It takes oppression and hardship to stiffen men's guts and put the fire of hell into their thews.

How did you come to your crown, you and that black-faced pig beside you? Your fathers did the fighting and the suffering, and handed their crowns to you on golden platters. What you inherited without lifting a finger — except to poison a few brothers — I fought for. “You

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. — The Road of Kings.

you civilized men are soft; your lives are not nailed to your spines as are ours

He grunted with satisfaction. The feel of the hilt cheered him and gave him a glow of confidence. Whatever webs of conspiracy were drawn about him, whatever trickery and treachery ensnared him, this knife was real. The great muscles of his right arm swelled in anticipation of murderous blows.

I saw that — that black thing squatting like an ape among the branches, leering down at me.

I walk from five to fifteen miles a day, no exaggeration, soliciting clothes and delivering them and when I’m not doing that I wash and clean clothes. Not an overly pleasant occupation but I like it all right. I work on commision and ought to make about $40 per month, some months more.

passed on by the hook-nosed herdsmen of the grasslands, from the dwellers in tents to the dwellers in the squat stone cities where kings with curled blueblack beards worshipped round-bellied gods with curious rites.

These things be deeds of some power of evil. The lords of darkness have laid a curse upon the country. A strong man is needed to combat Satan and his might. Therefore I go, who have defied him many a time.

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.