Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Robert E. Howard

155 quotes

“College don't amount to much anyhow. A lot of narrow minded, musty old ideas dispensed by uninterested teachers to pupils who have come to college for athletics, because they considered it the stylish thing or to keep from going to work.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Edna Mann (October 30, 1926)
“Don’t you think that as a people, Americans have less poetry, real poetry, in their souls than any other nations?”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Robert W. Gordon (January 2, 1926)
“I reckon if I ever marry, she will have to be a strong woman in a circus or something.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Harold Preece (c. January or February 1928)
“I mean my characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They’re rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Harold Preece (c. January or February 1928)
“We’re making tin gods out of those poor buffoons in Hollywood; I dote on movies and appreciate the scanty art therein but I consider the profession about the most debased and debasing I know.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (week of February 20, 1928)
“Hell, the world isn’t worth reforming or even aiding as I can see. Men are swine and most women are fools. Befriend a man and he’ll betray you. Fondle a woman and she’ll double-cross you – whip her and she’ll cringe to you.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Harold Preece (c. early 1928)
“What shall a man say when a friend has vanished behind the doors of Death? A mere tangle of barren words, only words.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (c. May 1928)
“Money and muscle, that’s what I want; to be able to do any damned thing I want and get away with it. Money won’t do that altogether, because if a man is a weakling, all the money in the world won’t enable him to soak an enemy himself; on the other hand, unless he has money he may not be able to get away with it.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Harold Preece (c. June 1928)
“I'm not going to vote. I won't vote for a Catholic and I won't vote for a damned Republican. Maybe I've said that before. My ancestors were all Catholic and not very far back. And I have reason to hate the church.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (c. November 1928)
“But who is this who rides in silver white Attire that shames the stars across the night? Helmet and shield and corselet all a-gleam, Like some crusader from a drifting dream Upon a prancing jackass shod with flame— Rise, heralds of the past, bray forth his name”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (c. November–December 1928)
“I'm not worrying about my Irish past. What has my Celtic blood ever done for me but give me a restless and unstable mind that gives me no rest in anything I do? Damn the Shan Van Vocht, and the ancestors that went to Sassenach gallows for her, and damn the Irish and damn the black Milesian blood in my veins that makes me like drift-wood fighting the waves and gives me no peace or rest waking or sleeping or riding or dreaming or traveling or wooing, drunken or sober, with hunger or slumber on me.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Harold Preece (1929)
“I believe, like you, that civilization is a natural and inevitable consequence, whether good or evil I am not prepared to state.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. August 1930)
“If I was wealthy I'd never do anything but poke around in ruined cities all over the world - and probably get snake-bit.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (1931)
“I'll say one thing about an oil boom; it will teach a kid that Life's a pretty rotten thing as quick as anything I can think of.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Farnsworth Wright (c. Summer 1931)
“Youngsters of this generation seem not quite so hazardous except in the way of mechanical speed, bad liquor and venereal diseases.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. April 1932)
“I don't believe I ever saw an Oklahoman who wouldn't fight at the drop of a hat — and frequently drop the hat himself.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (July 13, 1932)
“I am unable to rouse much interest in any highly civilized race, country or epoch, including this one.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (August 9, 1932)
“One objection I have heard voiced to works of this kind—dealing with Texas—is the amount of gore spilled across the pages. It can not be otherwise. In order to write a realistic and true history of any part of the Southwest, one must narrate such things, even at the risk of monotony.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to August Derleth (March 1933)
“When I look down the vista of the years, with all the "improvements," "inventions" and "progress" that they hold, I am infinitely thankful that I am no younger. I could wish to be older, much older. Every man wants to live out his life's span. But I hardly think life in this age is worth the effort of living. I'd like to round out my youth; and perhaps the natural vitality and animal exuberance of youth will carry me to middle age. But good God, to think of living the full three score years and ten!”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (March 6, 1933)
“Where does barbarism leave off and civilization begin?...We can hardly conceive ourselves to be the sole possessors of the only true civilization that the world has ever known.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (March 6, 1933)
“I wrote my first story when I was fifteen, and sent it—to Adventure, I believe. Three years later I managed to break into Weird Tales. Three years of writing without selling a blasted line. (I never have been able to sell to Adventure; guess my first attempt cooked me with them for ever!)”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. July 1933)
“As for war, that will come when international capital is ready. I do not believe, and have never believed, that Mussolini, Hitler and the other European strong-arm, he-man dictators are anything but figure-heads and tools for international capitalism. The same crowd that recently approached Smedley Butler with a proposition to overthrow the government and set up a Fascist dictatorship; the same gang that would have made Hoover dictator if they had dared. The same gang that is now opposing everything Roosevelt tries to accomplish.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H.P. Lovecraft, (c. December 1934). Quoted in Rusty Burke, Robert E. Howard: New Deal Heroic Fantasist. The Dark Man 2(1/2) Journal, Spring 2006.
“If someone asks you where you get your characters... and they're sure to do that... you always say, "He's a combination of a lot of people I have known." That way, if your character is a damn fool, nobody will want to identify with him... To tell the truth, I don't know how a man gets a character for a story, anymore than I know how he falls in love. I don't know if his characters spring full-blown from his head, or if he sees a man walking down the street and recognises him instantly... I doubt any writer knows for sure where his characters come from.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Behind them [Howard's stories] lurks a dark poetry and the timeless truth of dreams.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Robert Bloch, Introduction to Wolfshead (Bantam, 1979)
“Howard had a great love for all that was lost and strange and faraway. One thinks of him sitting at his typewriter in Cross Plains, Texas, a young man dreaming great dreams of gods and heroes far beyond the narrow boundaries of his own space and time, roaming free across the wonderful landscapes he saw in his mind.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leigh Brackett, "Introduction", in Sword Woman, Berkeley Books, New York, 1977.
“... all these criticisms fade like morning mist before Howard’s headlong rush of action, his rainbow-tinted prose, the intensity with which he wrote his own feelings into his stories, and, above all, his Hyborian world – that splendid creation – which ranks with Burroughs' Barsoom and Tolkien's Middle Earth as a major fictional achievement.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: L. Sprague de Camp, Dark Valley Destiny (1983), p. 295
“No wonder a few people in Cross Plains don’t like him. They don’t understand him. His preoccupation with history and with writing instead of the price of corn and cotton is something they could not understand Could I? I liked to talk about books. . . History. . . Writing. Well, this was an opportunity to listen to a very interesting storyteller!”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Novalyne Price Ellis, One Who Walked Alone (1986), p. 64,
“One cannot write about Robert E. Howard without writing about Texas. This is inevitable, and particularly so when discussing any aspect of Howard's biography. To ignore the presence of the Lone Star State in Robert E. Howard's life and writing invites, at the very least, a few wrongheaded conclusions, and at worst, abject character assassination. This doesn't keep people from plunging right in and getting it wrong every time.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mark Finn, Blood and Thunder (2006), p. 249
“Thriller was the first television program to discover the goldmine in those back issues of Weird Tales … Robert E. Howard's "Pigeons from Hell," one of the finest horror stories of our century, was adapted, and remains the favorite of many who remember Thriller with fondness.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best pulp writer was Robert E. Howard... He painted in about the broadest strokes imaginable. A mass of glimmering black for the menace, an ice-blue cascade for the hero, between them a swathe of crimson for battle, passion, blood—and that was the picture, or story, rather, except where a vivid detail might chance to spring to life, or a swift thought-arabesque be added.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fritz Leiber, Howard’s Style, in Amra magazine, Vol. II, No. 17, 1961. Reprinted in The Spell of Conan, edited by L. Sprague de Camp, Ace Books, 1980, pp. 263.
“It is hard to describe precisely what made Mr. Howard's stories stand out so sharply; but the real secret is that he himself is in every one of them, whether they were ostensibly commercial or not. He was greater than any profit-making policy he could adopt — for even when he outwardly made concessions to Mammon-guided editors and commercial critics, he had an internal force and sincerity which broke through the surface and put the imprint of his personality on everything he wrote.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: H. P. Lovecraft, "Robert Ervin Howard: A Memorium", Fantasy Magazine (1936); reprinted in The Last Celt, Glenn Lord ed. (1976), p. 69
“I also think that fantasy fans should go back and read the classics: obviously Tolkien if you haven’t read him, but also works like Fritz Leiber’s classic Fahfrd and the Grey Mousers stories; the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard and his other characters like Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane; Jack Vance, one of my all-time favourites, the marvellous The Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: George R. R. Martin, "An Interview With George R. R. Martin: Part One. Indigo Magazine, July 12 2011.
“Forget Schwarzenegger and the movies. This is pure pulp fiction from the 1930s, before political corrections and focus groups dictated the direction of our art. Swords spin, entrails spill, and woman swoon.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: , quoted in The Bloody Crown of Conan (Ballantine, 2004)
“I am a tremendous admirer of Mr. Howard’s work. At his best he is very near perfection, it seems to me, and even at his goriest and blood-and-thundery-est there’s a lusty vitality about everything he writes that makes the story engulf one in the vividest, most living sort of way.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. L. Moore, Letter to H. P. Lovecraft, 24 Apr 1935. Quoted in H.P. Lovecraft: Letters to C. L. Moore and Others, edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. Hippocampus Press, 2017 ( p.31).
“Anyone following my work has probably seen that I love shoe-horning in fantasy and pulp elements into my superhero books. Catman was inspired by Tarzan, the Secret Six went to Skartaris, Wonder Woman met Beowulf and Claw. To be blunt, I love that stuff. I love the earthy primal quality of it, I love the pulp mythos from people like Lovecraft and Burroughs, and of course, Robert E. Howard.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gail Simone, Interview: Gail Simone on Writing "Red Sonja" For Dynamite, Todd Allen. The Beat magazine, 3rd January 2013.
“Howard is a rather surprising person, and I think he is more complex, and is also possessed of more literary ability, than I had thought from many of his stories. The Conan tales, in my opinion, are quite in a class by themselves.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Clark Ashton Smith, Letter to August Derleth, August 29th, 1933. Quoted in Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith, edited by David E. Schultz and Scott Connors. Arkham House Sauk City, Wis., 2003.
“I believe the late R. E. Howard and I would have had a grand time together lambasting civilization; that is, if I have not been misinformed as to his views. Barbarism, barbaric art, barbaric peoples, appeal more and more to me. I could never live in any modern city, and am more of an “outsider” than HPL. His “outsideness” was principally in regard to time-period; mine is one of space, too.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Clark Ashton Smith, Letter to Robert H. Barlow, May 16, 1937. Quoted in Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith, edited by David E. Schultz and Scott Connors. Arkham House Sauk City, Wis., 2003.
“Yonder in the unknown vastness"—his long finger stabbed at the black silent jungle which brooded beyond the firelight—"yonder lies mystery and adventure and nameless terror. Once I dared the jungle—once she nearly claimed my bones. Something entered into my blood, something stole into my soul like a whisper of unnamed sin. The jungle! Dark and brooding—over leagues of the blue salt sea she has drawn me and with the dawn I go to seek the heart of her. Mayhap I shall find curious adventure—mayhap my doom awaits me. But better death than the ceaseless and everlasting urge, the fire that has burned my veins with bitter longing.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars — Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyberborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And he lifted his clenched fists above his head, and with glaring eyes raised and writhing lips flecked with froths, he cursed the sky and the earth and the spheres above and below. He cursed the cold stars, the blazing sun, the mocking moon and the whisper of the wind. He cursed all fates and destinies, all that he had loved or hated, the silent cities beneath the seas, the past ages and the future eons. In one soul-shaking burst of blasphemy he cursed the gods and devils who made mankind their sport, and he cursed Man who lives blindly on and blindly offers his back to the iron-hoofed feet of his gods.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The] chief [of the gods of Cimmeria] is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods? … There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people. In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan of Cimmeria"—she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in a pantherish embrace--"my love is stronger than any death! I have lain in your arms, panting with the violence of our love; you have held and crushed and conquered me, drawing my soul to your lips with the fierceness of your bruising kisses. My heart is welded to your heart, my soul is part of your soul! Were I still in death and you fighting for life, I would come back to the abyss to aid you--aye, whether my spirit floated with the purple sails on the crystal sea of paradise, or writhed in the molten flames of hell! I am yours, and all the gods and all their eternities shall not sever us!”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I could name all day, those women I deem great in Greece alone and the records would scarcely be complete. And what of Joan of Arc and Emma Goldman? Kate Richards O’Hare and Sarah Bernhardt? Katherine the Great and Elizabeth Barrett Browning? H.D. and Sara Teasdale? Isibella of Spain who pawned her gems that Columbus might sail, and Edna St. Vincent Millay? And that queen, Marie, I think her name was, of some small province - Hungary I believe - who fought Prussia and Russia so long and so bitterly. And Rome – oh, the list is endless there, also - most of them were glorified harlots but better be a glorified harlot than a drab and moral drone, such as the text books teach us woman should be. Woman have always been the inspiration of men, and just as there are thousands of unknown great ones among men, there have been countless women whose names have never been blazoned across the stars, but who have inspired men on to glory. And as for their fickleness – as long as men write the literature of the world, they will rant about the unfaithfulness of the fair sex, forgetting their own infidelities. Men are as fickle as women. Women have been kept in servitude so long that if they lack in discernment and intellect it is scarcely their fault.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Harold Preece (c. December 1928)
“Like you, the Sagas of Norse Gods and heroes fascinate me. Their mythology seems more characteristically Nordic than any other-naturally, of course. I still feel deep resentment toward Charlemagne for his bloody conversion of the Nordic pagans – and while I do not consider that it was revenge for his ruthless crusade that sent the more remote Norsemen sweeping down to ravage the south – it was more likely a natural result of growth and expansion and press of population – still I can appreciate the feelings of those Odin-worshippers who destroyed shrine and monastery and burned priests in the ruins of their altars.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (August 1931)
“Magazines were even more scarce than books. It was after I moved into "town" (speaking comparatively) that I began to buy magazines. I well remember the first I ever bought. I was fifteen years old; I bought it one summer night when a wild restlessness in me would not let me keep still, and I had exhausted all the reading material on the place. I'll never forget the thrill it gave me. Somehow it never had occurred to me before that I could buy a magazine. It was an Adventure. I still have the copy. After that I bought Adventure for many years, though at times it cramped my resources to pay the price. It came out three times a month, then... I skimped and saved from one magazine to the next; I'd buy one copy and have it charged, and when the next issue was out, I'd pay for the one which I owed, and have the other one charged, and so on. So I generally owed for one, but only one.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (1933)
“You say the attractions of a barbaric life could not exist without the perspective of civilization. Yet (if we call the Vikings barbarians) do you not think that they found their life good without that perspective? The sagas hum with self-glorification, with praise of the "whale path", and the glory of the foray. Dull, mindless clods, mere hunks of inert matter? I cannot agree there. Such men as Eric the Red, Leif the Lucky, Hrolf the Ganger, Hengist - they could not have been feeble jelly-like organisms groping blindly through the scum of primordial night. They were alive; they stung, they burned, they tingled with Life - life raw and crude and violent doubtless; but life, just the same, and worthy to be classified with the best effort of the intellectual side of man.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (March 6, 1933). Quoted in A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard eds. S.T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, and Rusty Burke; Hippocampus Press, 2017, (pp. 547-48)
“It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments. I became a writer in spite of my environments. Understand, I am not criticizing those environments. They were good, solid and worthy. The fact that they were not inducive to literature and art is nothing in their disfavor. Never the less, it is no light thing to enter into a profession absolutely foreign and alien to the people among which one's lot is cast; a profession which seems as dim and faraway and unreal as the shores of Europe. The people among which I lived — and yet live, mainly — made their living from cotton, wheat, cattle, oil, with the usual percentage of business men and professional men. That is most certainly not in their disfavor. But the idea of a man making his living by writing seemed, in that hardy environment, so fantastic that even today I am sometimes myself assailed by a feeling of unreality. Never the less, at the age of fifteen, having never seen a writer, a poet, a publisher or a magazine editor, and having only the vaguest ideas of procedure, I began working on the profession I had chosen. I have accomplished little enough, but such as it is, it is the result of my own efforts. I had neither expert aid nor advice. I studied no courses in writing; until a year or so ago, I never read a book by anybody advising writers how to write. Ordinarily I had no access to public libraries, and when I did, it was to no such libraries as exist in the cities. Until recently — a few weeks ago in fact — I employed no agent. I have not been a success, and probably never will be. But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember — that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. July 1933)
“When the civilized Chinese set the the Huns in motion, and the Huns in turn drove the Eastern Teutons before them - in that crush of nations, where were the Lombards, the Vandals, the Franks, and the Goths to go, if not over the crumbling lines of a rotten civilization? There was suffering in such wars; there is suffering in all wars; the barbarians wrought less destruction on their civilized enemies than many civilized races have wrought upon vanquished barbarians - Spaniards upon the Aztecs and Incas, for instance; read inside accounts of French rule in Syria and Algeria for a good idea of how civilization deals with her barbaric subjects. The Romanized peoples probably suffered less from the Germans than the Germans themselves, and the Slavs, suffered from the Huns, Avars or Yen-Yen and Bulgars.”
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (September, 1933). Quoted in A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard eds. S.T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, and Rusty Burke; Hippocampus Press, 2017, (pp. 643)