What we did see — for the mists were indeed all too malignly thinned — was something altogether different, and immeasurably more hideous and detestab… - H. P. Lovecraft

Whilst never actually rebuffing a visitor, he always reared such a wall of reserve that few could think of anything to say to him which would not sound inane.

I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness.

My uncle, it seems, had quickly instituted a prodigiously far-flung body of inquires amongst nearly all the friends whom he could question without impertinence, asking for nightly reports of their dreams, and the dates of any notable visions for some time past. The reception of his request seems to have varied; but he must, at the very least, have received more responses than any ordinary man could have handled without a secretary.