Ronald > Ronald's Quotes

“I am looking into a silent world.”
― J.G. Ballard, The Complete Short Stories

“On the morning after the storm the body of a drowned giant was washed ashore on the beach five miles to the north-west of the city.”
― J.G. Ballard, The Complete Short Stories

“Have you seen The Yellow Sign?”
― Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories

“Egnaro is a secret known to everyone but yourself.

It is a country or a city to which you have never been; it is an unknown language. At the same time it is like being cuckolded, or plotted against. It is part of the universe of events which will never wholly reveal itself to you: a conspiracy the barest outline of which, once visible, will gall you forever.”
― M. John Harrison, Things That Never Happen

“Everyone loves a mysterious country.”
― M. John Harrison, Things That Never Happen

“It is technically impossible for a man to look better in a Speedo than in swim trunks.”
― Jennifer Egan, Black Box

“Steampunk is...a joyous fantasy of the past, allowing us to revel in a nostalgia for what never was. It is a literary playground for adventure, spectacle, drama, escapism and exploration. But most of all it is fun!”
― George Mann

“In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.”
― Isaac Asimov

“Upon the delicate chin you turned
Venus had set her cloven sign.
Like embers seen through darkest wine
Your unextinguished tresses burned.”
― Clark Ashton Smith

“Bow down, I am the emperor of dreams.”
― Clark Ashton Smith, The Last Oblivion: Best Fantastic Poems of Clark Ashton Smith

“In Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield mentions reading books that make him wish he could be friends with the author and be able to call him on the phone and so forth. I would consider a literary work that made someone feel this way a success. Furthermore, it’s the only kind of success in literature that means anything to me.”
― Thomas Ligotti

“Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“If asked to name the definitive image in Lovecraft, one might likely say its tentacles flailing from the body of a monster. For me it would be probably be puppets, manikins, and clown-like things, even though these are more often a matter of metaphor than a literal presence of a monstrous type. Nevertheless, if Lovecraft’s tentacle monsters and my puppets and so on fought each other, I think the monsters would win.”
― Thomas Ligotti

“Strangeness which is the essence of beauty is the essence of truth, and the essence of the world. I have often felt that; when the ascent of a long hill brought me to the summit of an undiscovered height in London; and I looked down on a new land.”
― Arthur Machen, The London Adventure or The Art of Wandering

“Be skeptical of everything but closed minded to nothing”
― Anthony Jones

“He said to me, ‘The book has found its reader,’ and what could I do but agree with him?”
― Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead

“But surely,’ I said at last, ‘Love is stronger than Death?’ ‘We must believe so, Martin, even when it appears to be untrue.”
― Reggie Oliver, The Ballet of Dr Caligari and Madder Mysteries

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Human beings are the scariest monsters.”
― James Everington, Falling Over

“I wish you all the joy that you can wish.”
― William Shakespeare

“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
― John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids

“Remember our new motto, dude: ‘Shit’s crazy. Don’t ask.’” ”
― Rob Dircks, Where the Hell is Tesla?

“No, the old proverb does not lie: Look for the brave in prison, and the stupid among the political leaders!”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
― H.L. Mencken, A Little Book In C Major

“Of course,' he said, 'it is possible to be haunted by the living as by the dead.”
― Reggie Oliver, A Maze for the Minotaur

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions—? Rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Frammenti postumi 1887-1888