H.P. Lovecraft Quotes

“Miniver loved the days of old When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; The vision of a warrior bold. Would set him dancing. Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, and rested from his labors; He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam’s neighbors. EDWIN A. ROBINSON”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography

“It is said that the mother of King George III told him: “George, be king!” and that many of this well-meaning but far from brilliant monarch’s troubles stemmed from trying to obey her. Likewise, Susie Lovecraft in effect told her son: “Be a gentleman!” She succeeded in making him into a lifelong snob,”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography

“From 1909 to 1914, Lovecraft turned from adolescent to adult; but his life during this period is an almost utter blank. Apparently he sat at home, day after day, staying up most of the night and in bed all morning, reading voraciously, writing reams of Georgian poetry, and doing little else.”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography

“He seems to have developed a rare, little-understood affliction called poikilothermism. The victim loses the normal mammalian ability to keep his body temperature constant, regardless of changes in the ambient temperature. His body assumes the temperature of its surroundings, as if he were a reptile or a fish.”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography

“Now, Lovecraft was notoriously fond of sweets. He consumed vast quantities of chocolate and ice cream; he so saturated his coffee with sugar that a sticky mass was left in the cup. If he was hyperinsulinic, such a practice was guaranteed to cause a collapse of the kind he told about.”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography

“On July 6, 1906, Lovecraft acquired a used Remington typewriter. He never, however, took the next logical step: to learn to type by touch. All his life, he typed with his two forefingers, as did many writers of his generation like H. L. Mencken.”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography

“He spoke of headaches, indigestion, lassitude, fatigue, depression, and inability to concentrate. Symptoms like these can be caused by any of many ailments, such as hypotension (low blood pressure), hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), hypothyroidism (low thyroid-gland function), and several infections by microörganisms. Some physicians say that an idle, useless existence, such as Lovecraft led for the next decade, is enough by itself to cause the symptoms of which he complained. The medical science of 1908 was not up to coping with Lovecraft’s infirmity, whatever it was.”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography

“In his last years, Lovecraft dropped practically all his ethnic phobias and denounced the very opinions he had earlier flaunted.”
― L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography