Robert E. Howard Quotes

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!

Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph

Break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.

The only safe enemy was a headless enemy.

For man's only weapon is courage that flinches not from the gates of Hell itself, and against such not even the legions of Hell can stand.

But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood.

What is death but a traversing of eternities and a crossing of cosmic oceans?

Man can be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but shadows. The mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream -- that is real, that is immortal.

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.

If I was wealthy I'd never do anything but poke around in ruined cities all over the world - and probably get snake-bit.

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.

Man is still an ape in that he forgets what is not ever before his eyes.

I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, & am content.

One man's bane is another's bliss.

Before the invader sound was born, the Universe was silent and shall be again.

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.

Civilization is a network and a maze of precedences and custom.

A woman in such an emotional tempest is as perilous as a blind cobra to any about her.

Barbarism is the natural state of mankind.

I have accomplished little enough, but such as it is, it is the result of my own efforts.

While we may open the books of the past, we may but grant flying glances of the future, through the mist that veils it.

How can I wear the harness of toil And sweat at the daily round, While in my soul forever The drums of Pictdom sound?

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.

Coming, as I do, from mountain folk on one side and sea followers on the other, there are few old songs of the hills or the sea with which I am not familiar.

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.

Rome got some peachy pastings when she tried to lick the Irish.

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.

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.

It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.

A kingdom is not lost by a single defeat.

All fled—all done, so lift me on the pyre— The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.

Aye, you white dog, you are like all your race; but to a black man gold can never pay for blood.

Animals are neither gods nor fiends, but men in their way without the lust and greed of man.

I have known many gods. He who denies them is blind as he who trusts them too deeply.

It is better to go in the dark when the road must pass a lion and there is no other road.

I have no fear of the Hereafter. An orthodox hell could hardly be more torture than my life has been.

Civilization is a natural and inevitable consequence - whether good or evil I am not prepared to state.

I'm not going out of my way looking for devils; but I wouldn't step out of my path to let one go by.

Youngsters of this generation seem not quite so hazardous except in the way of mechanical speed, bad liquor and venereal diseases.

I have gone into yesterday and tomorrow and both were as real as today -- which is like the dreams of ghosts!

I have put off the past like a worn-out cloak.

I see in the papers where Roy Guthrie committed suicide. Why, I wonder?

It is an ill thing to meet a man you thought dead in the woodland at dusk.

What always was must always be.

In the hill country, civilization steals in last, and the people retain much of the crude but vigorous mode of expression of the colonial days and earlier.

Don't you think that as a people, Americans have less poetry, real poetry, in their souls than any other nations?

I became a writer in spite of my environments.

Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness.

What shall a man say when a friend has vanished behind the doors of Death? A mere tangle of barren words, only words.