Weird Fiction Quotes

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

“Sometimes, you have to flaunt the weird, my friend.

-Alex Fierro”
― Rick Riordan, The Ship of the Dead

“A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous, glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil--of people passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices--of armies trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray's rhythmic death--of cities rushing out into space upon the wings of that other demoniac force which Olaf had watched at work--of a haunted world through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole invisible, carrying with them every passion of hell--of the rallying to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew that, once loosed, not any nation could hold the devil-god for long and that swiftly its blight would spread!”
― A. Merritt, The Moon Pool

“Every time you think you have the world figured, trust me, that’s just when the world’s got you figured and is about to spring and break your back”
― Brian Evenson, A Collapse of Horses

“The Coach’s head was oblong with tiny slits that served as eyes, which drifted in tides slowly inward, as though the face itself were the sea or, in fact, a soup of macromolecules through which objects might drift, leaving in their wake, ripples of nothingness. The eyes—they floated adrift like land masses before locking in symmetrically at seemingly prescribed positions off-center, while managing to be so closely drawn into the very middle of the face section that it might have seemed unnecessary for there to have been two eyes when, quite likely, one would easily have sufficed. These aimless, floating eyes were not the Coach’s only distinctive feature—for, in fact, connected to the interior of each eyelid by a web-like layer of rubbery pink tissue was a kind of snout which, unlike the eyes, remained fixed in its position among the tides of the face, arcing narrowly inward at the edges of its sharp extremities into a serrated beak-like projection that hooked downward at its tip, in a fashion similar to that of a falcon’s beak. This snout—or beak, rather—was, in fact, so long and came to such a fine point that as the eyes swirled through the soup of macromolecules that comprised the man’s face, it almost appeared—due to the seeming thinness of the pink tissue—that the eyes functioned as kinds of optical tether balls that moved synchronously across the face like mirror images of one another.

'I wore my lizard mask as I entered the tram, last evening, and people found me fearless,' the Coach remarked, enunciating each word carefully through the hollow clack-clacking sound of his beak, as its edges clapped together. 'I might have exchanged it for that of an ox and then thought better. A lizard goes best with scales, don’t you think?' Bunnu nodded as he quietly wondered how the Coach could manage to fit that phallic monstrosity of a beak into any kind of mask, unless, in fact, this disguise of which he spoke, had been specially designed for his face and divided into sections in such a way that they could be readily attached to different areas—as though one were assembling a new face—in overlapping layers, so as to veil, or perhaps even amplify certain distinguishable features. All the same, in doing so, one could only imagine this lizard mask to be enormous to the extent that it would be disproportionate with the rest of the Coach’s body. But then, there were ways to mask space, as well—to bend light, perhaps, to create the illusion that something was perceptibly larger or smaller, wider or narrower, rounder or more linear than it was in actuality. That is to say, any form of prosthesis designed for the purposes of affecting remedial space might, for example, have had the capability of creating the appearance of a gap of void in occupied space. An ornament hangs from the chin, let’s say, as an accessory meant to contour smoothly inward what might otherwise appear to be hanging jowls. This surely wouldn’t be the exact use that the Coach would have for such a device—as he had no jowls to speak of—though he could certainly see the benefit of the accessory’s ingenuity. This being said, the lizard mask might have appeared natural rather than disproportionate given the right set of circumstances. Whatever the case, there was no way of even knowing if the Coach wasn’t, in fact, already wearing a mask, at this very moment, rendering Bunnu’s initial appraisal of his character—as determined by a rudimentary physiognomic analysis of his features—a matter now subject to doubt. And thus, any conjecture that could be made with respect to the dimensions or components of a lizard mask—not to speak of the motives of its wearer—seemed not only impractical, but also irrelevant at this point in time.”
― Ashim Shanker, Don't Forget to Breathe

“Sound waves, regardless of their frequency or intensity, can only be detected by the Mole Fly’s acute sense of smell—it is a little known fact that the Mole Fly’s auditory receptors do not, in fact, have a corresponding center in the brain designated for the purposes of processing sensory stimuli and so, these stimuli, instead of being siphoned out as noise, bypass the filters to be translated, oddly enough, by the part of the brain that processes smell. Consequently, the Mole Fly’s brain, in its inevitable confusion, understands sound as an aroma, rendering the boundary line between the auditory and olfactory sense indistinguishable.

Sounds, thus, come in a variety of scents with an intensity proportional to its frequency. Sounds of shorter wavelength, for example, are particularly pungent. What results is a species of creature that cannot conceptualize the possibility that sound and smell are separate entities, despite its ability to discriminate between the exactitudes of pitch, timbre, tone, scent, and flavor to an alarming degree of precision. Yet, despite this ability to hyper-analyze, they lack the cognitive skill to laterally link successions of either sound or smell into a meaningful context, resulting in the equivalent of a data overflow.
And this may be the most defining element of the Mole Fly’s behavior: a blatant disregard for the context of perception, in favor of analyzing those remote and diminutive properties that distinguish one element from another. While sensory continuity seems logical to their visual perception, as things are subject to change from moment-to-moment, such is not the case with their olfactory sense, as delays in sensing new smells are granted a degree of normality by the brain. Thus, the Mole Fly’s olfactory-auditory complex seems to be deprived of the sensory continuity otherwise afforded in the auditory senses of other species. And so, instead of sensing aromas and sounds continuously over a period of time—for example, instead of sensing them 24-30 times per second, as would be the case with their visual perception—they tend to process changes in sound and smell much more slowly, thereby preventing them from effectively plotting the variations thereof into an array or any kind of meaningful framework that would allow the information provided by their olfactory and auditory stimuli to be lasting in their usefulness.

The Mole flies, themselves, being the structurally-obsessed and compulsive creatures that they are, in all their habitual collecting, organizing, and re-organizing of found objects into mammoth installations of optimal functional value, are remarkably easy to control, especially as they are given to a rather false and arbitrary sense of hierarchy, ascribing positions—that are otherwise trivial, yet necessarily mundane if only to obscure their true purpose—with an unfathomable amount of honor, to the logical extreme that the few chosen to serve in their most esteemed ranks are imbued with a kind of obligatory arrogance that begins in the pupal stages and extends indefinitely, as they are further nurtured well into adulthood by a society that infuses its heroes of middle management with an immeasurable sense of importance—a kind of celebrity status recognized by the masses as a living embodiment of their ideals. And yet, despite this culture of celebrity worship and vicarious living, all whims and impulses fall subservient, dropping humbly to the knees—yes, Mole Flies do, in fact, have knees!—before the grace of the merciful Queen, who is, in actuality, just a puppet dictator installed by the Melic papacy, using an old recycled Damsel fly-fishing lure. The dummy is crude, but convincing, as the Mole flies treat it as they would their true-born queen.”
― Ashim Shanker, Don't Forget to Breathe

“It is a common trick of Nature – and a profoundly
significant one – that, just when despair is deepest,
she waves a wand before the weary eyes and does
her best to waken an impossible hope.”
― Algernon Blackwood, The Listener and Other Stories

“People are slippery.
Especially when they excrete.
Or bleed.
Or fuck.”
― Logan Ryan Smith, Y is for Fidelity

“True writers have multiple personalities. Every one of them is insane.”
― A.K. Kuykendall

“One senses that it is a region of cosmic antiquity, and that man is no more significant here than any other of the insects that crawl in the dust.”
― Mark Samuels, The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales

“Another time he woke me up in the middle of the night, lifted me off the pale blue sheets, led me outside to the stars and whispered: Look, Annie, look—there is no space for anything but dreaming. I listened, sleepily, wandered back to bed and
found myself wide awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to dream at all”
― Aimee Bender, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

“I was seven years old the first time my brother tried to kill me.”
― Jon Padgett, The Secret of Ventriloquism

“His briefcase, now very worn though not particularly old, continued to direct his endless outgoings and incomings, from the four legs of his bed to the four legs of his office desk and back again. His key went from lock to pocket, and back to the lock. Then one day there yawned before the key not a lock and not a pocket but, shall we say, an abyss. One might, of course, having slipped one’s key into the abyss, turn it twice from left to right. The resident did just that, but… we mustn’t violate the logic of chronos or, as it’s generally known, chronological order.”
― Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Memories of the Future

“For know you, that your gold and marble city of wonder is only the sum of what you have seen and loved in youth... the glory of Boston’s hillside roofs and western windows aflame with sunset; of the flower-fragrant Common and the great dome on the hill and the tangle of gables and chimneys in the violet valley where the many-bridged Charles flows drowsily... this loveliness, moulded, crystallised, and polished by years of memory and dreaming, is your terraced wonder of elusive sunsets; and to find that marble parapet with curious urns and carven rail, and descend at last those endless balustraded steps to the city of broad squares and prismatic fountains, you need only to turn back to the thoughts and visions of your wistful boyhood.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

“Samo srž bića sve¬doči o njegovoj pravoj prirodi, lišenoj svih zabluda koje su, naizgled, izvitoperile njegovu prirodu. Dabome, priroda je nepromenljiva – ničim se suština ne dâ zamutiti ili razbistriti. Čini mi se da isto važi i kad su u pitanju zakoni fizike… Drevni alhemičari su, sto¬ga, pogrešili, a pogrešili su po pitanju svojih teorija i praktičnih postupaka. Vidite, oni su pokušavali da pročiste materiju, da je zapanjujućim metodama promene – i time joj promene suštinu. Suština se samo može manifestovati ovako ili onako… Kao voda: da li je smrznuta, da li teče ili isparava – nije važno, jer voda je, i dalje, voda. Dakle, suština, naprosto, jeste – i ne menja se.
- Iz pripovetke ''Srce lutke”
― Boban Trifunović, Srce lutke

“Rado bih te pitao za mišljenje o plavičastom prahu, ilovači, primerku čudne zbirke pesama na nemačkom i poderanoj crnoj tkanini, da sam se nakanio da ti o tome pišem ranije. Prekorno po¬smatram sebe, vrtim glavom i uzdržavam se od uzdaha. Trebalo je da ti pišem i pitam te o… o tim čudnovatim predmetima. Trebalo je da pišem i prijatelju, etnologu, koji proučava takve predmete. Nikome nisam pisao, Kato. Držao sam sve strahote u sebi i pomi-šljao da pomeram pameću… Možda sam i pomerio, samo nisam svestan promene.
- Iz pripovetke ''Posezanje za Diimrudom”
― Boban Trifunović, Srce lutke

“Nisam umišljao… nisam uobrazio tu gorostasnu, grbavu sen koja je, grdna, čučala pred pragom i grmela iz dubine svog gro¬znog oblika. Napisao sam „sen “, kako sam kroz nju mogao da nazrem farbu vrata i kvaku i prag… a u njoj sam, sasvim sigurno, nazrô tačke tmine koje su se svijale, i iz kojih je sipilo nešto svetlu¬cavo, zelenkasto. Postojana i nepostojana, prozirna i neprozirna, sen se rastakala i stremila da dotakne vrata, ali se pred pragom povlačila… i razdvajala u raznobojne seni, koje su, potom, poste¬peno nestajale. Ta grdosija se menjala tako da nipošto nije mogla da poprimi jedan kudikamo stalan i raspoznatljiv oblik: bila je sve i nije bila ništa – a bila je tu, i tvrdoglavo grabila. Međutim, u poslednjem obličju te seni prepoznao sam oblik životinje (nije nemoguće – jarca), a ta životinja (ne znam kako, niti želim da znam!) duvala je u frulu, čija me je bogohulna melodija poslala u milostivi mrak nesvesti.
- Iz pripovetke ''Posezanje za Diimrudom”
― Boban Trifunović, Srce lutke

“Look to your internment in Quarantine as a blessing (I have no doubt you’ll weather the virus).
It is a fortuitous opportunity to reflect on the poison flecking your tongue, and, if you can resist swallowing, perhaps one day the gates will open, hopefully by myself, and we can once again discuss philosophy into the wee hours of the night. Or perhaps you’ve already escaped and will plunge a knife into my back as I sign my valediction…”
― Daniel Scott Westby, Goblin Winter: of Puppet Kings and Telling Sins

“Creativity isn't always an index of niceness”
― Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

“Los danzantes que se congregan en torno al Zócalo siempre me han parecido un presagio ominoso, el recordatorio de una revancha que puede cumplirse en cualquier momento.”
― Bernardo Esquinca, Demonia

“Florida was the experiment," Santa told me. "Florida was stop number one on the Agenda.”
― Chase Griffin, What's On the Menu?

“He was afraid of the conversation he was about to have, yet he badly wanted to have it. It was like this each time. His hands trembled ever so slightly as he reached into the drawer.

He removed a plain-looking pinewood box. Placing it on the desk in front of him, he opened its hinged top. Inside was a metallic cone inserted into a wooden base, set next to an electromagnet and two dry cells.

He switched it on. Then came the low-pitched hum, and the faint blue aura.”
― Arthur Shattuck O'Keefe, The Spirit Phone

“How curious is this home, our tower?”
― William Pauley III, The Tower

“Shub Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. Her love is felt across the cosmos and we happily fall under Her warm, eldritch embrace. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!”
― Emily Wyeth, Mother's Milk

“…waar moet het meerkleurige vruchtlichaam bloeien dat met schimmeldraden gevormd werd…”
― Stijn Moreels, Indigo

“De afgetrokken gangmuren vol plekken en putten waren zo dun als liefde.”
― Stijn Moreels

“this coffee tasted so good it made Agnes Shepherd cry”
― chris mackey, Radio Mustard: Book One: The Weight

“One day John J. Eastwood said, “There is a bad guy in town.” He said, “I want to fight him.” “First”, he said,
“I’m going to have some whiskey.” Then he went outside and started a fight. But he got shot. But he didn’t really get shot. But he killed a hot dog! The next day he was dead. We had his funeral.....
Kids, this is about westerns”
― chris mackey, Radio Mustard: Book One: The Weight

“Fransk balkong, tror jeg de kaller sånne små selvmordsutvekster, akkurat store nok til å hoppe fra og ikke stort mer.”
― Tone Wasbak Melbye, Wales and the art of fine dying

“I, Satampra Zeiros of Uzuldaroum, shall write with my left hand, since I have no longer any other, the tale of everything that befell Tirouv Ompallios and myself in the shrine of the god Tsathoggua, which lies neglected by the worship of man in the jungle-taken suburbs of Commoriom, that long-deserted capital of the Hyperborean rulers. I shall write it with the violet juice of the suvana-palm, which turns to a blood-red rubric with the passage of years, on a strong vellum that is made from the skin of the mastodon, as a warning to all good thieves and adventurers who may hear some lying legend of the lost treasures of Commoriom and be tempted thereby.”
― Clark Ashton Smith, The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros