If a scientifically trained observer sees a gun go off for the first time, he should be able—theoretically, anyway—to work out a formula for gunpowde… - Henry Kuttner

No one liked to talk about it, but occasionally a toothless crone would mumble fearfully that the flames could not burn her, for her whole body had taken on the peculiar anesthesia of her witch-mark.

I learned of the fungoid, inhuman beings that dwell on far cold Yuggoth, of the cyclopean shapes that attend unsleeping Cthulhu in his submarine city, of the strange pleasures that the followers of leprous, subterranean Yog-Sothoth may possess, and I learned, too, of the unbelievable manner in which Iod, the Source, is worshiped beyond the outer galaxies.

"A long time ago I lived in Lisbon,' she said, in softly slurred Portuguese that made the name of the city Leesh-boa. 'But before that, meus neto, my tribe was in the mountains where there are only old things, like the trees and the rocks and the streams. There are truths to be learned from the old things -' She hesitated, and her brown, shrunken claw closed over Pete's hand. 'Do you know the truth, Pedrinho?'

("Before I Wake...")"