Robert E. Howard: Trending quotes

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Robert E. Howard: 290 quotes6 likes

“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

From a letter to Harold Preece (c. June 1928)
Letters

“I cannot believe in a paradise
Glorious, undefiled,
For gates all scrolled and streets of gold
Are tales for a dreaming child.

I am too lost for shame
That it moves me unto mirth,
But I can vision a Hell of flame
For I have lived on earth.”

Robert E. Howard

"Visions" (1972)

“Like gay-hued leaves after an autumn storm, the fallen littered the plain; the sinking sun shimmered on burnished helmets, gilt-worked mail, silver breastplates, broken swords and the heavy regal folds of silken standards, overthrown in pools of curdling crimson. In silent heaps lay war-horses and their steel-clad riders, flowing manes and blowing plumes stained alike in the red tide. About them and among them, like the drift of a storm, were strewn slashed and trampled bodies in steel caps and leather jerkins…”

Robert E. Howard

"The Scarlet Citadel" (1933)

“The King is only a slave like yourself, locked with heavier chains.”

Robert E. Howard

"By This Axe I Rule!" (1967)

“The dullest was struck by the contrast between the harsh, taciturn, gloomy commander, and the pirate whose laugh was gusty and ready, who roared ribald songs in a dozen languages, guzzled ale like a toper, and—apparently—had no thought for the morrow.”

Robert E. Howard

"The Pool of the Black One" (1933)

“his mighty shoulders twitched. "A murrain of these wizardly feuds! Pelias has dealt well with me, but I care not if I see him no more. Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Damnation! What would I not give for a flagon of wine!"”

Robert E. Howard

"Crom!"
"The Scarlet Citadel" (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

From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. July 1933)
Letters

“He grunted with satisfaction. The feel of the hilt cheered him and gave him a glow of confidence. Whatever webs of conspiracy were drawn about him, whatever trickery and treachery ensnared him, this knife was real. The great muscles of his right arm swelled in anticipation of murderous blows.”

Robert E. Howard book The Hour of the Dragon

The Hour of the Dragon (1935-1936)

“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

~ Novalyne Price Ellis, One Who Walked Alone, p. 64, ISBN 093798678X
About

“Eons ago when your ancestors were defending their caves against the tiger and the mammoth, with crude spears of flint, the gold spires of my people split the stars! They are gone and forgotten, and the world is a waste of barbarians, white and black. Let me, too, pass as a dream that is forgotten in the mists of the ages…”

Robert E. Howard

"The Moon of Skulls" (1930)

“The Lion strode through the Halls of Hell;
Across his path grim shadows fell
Of many a mowing, nameless shape
Monsters with dripping jaws agape.
The darkness shuddered with scream and yell
When the Lion stalked through the Halls of Hell.”

Robert E. Howard

"The Scarlet Citadel" (1933)

“What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.”

Robert E. Howard

"The Phoenix on the Sword" (1932)

“Not for naught had he gained access into darksome cults, had harkened to the grisly whispers of the votaries of Skelos under midnight trees, and read the forbidden iron-bound books of Vathelos the Blind.”

Robert E. Howard

"Black Colossus" (1933)

“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.”

Robert E. Howard

From a letter to Robert W. Gordon (February 4, 1925)
Letters

“…Free my hands and I'll varnish this floor with your brains!”

Robert E. Howard

"The Scarlet Citadel" (1933)

“Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.
"Men shall die for this," he said coldly.”

Robert E. Howard

"Red Shadows" (1928)

“Conan sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly and ferociously. "Who dies first?"”

Robert E. Howard

"The Phoenix on the Sword" (1932)

“Although he had his faults as a writer, Howard was a natural storyteller, whose narratives are unmatched for vivid, gripping, headlong action. His heroes – King Kull, Conan, Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane are larger than life: men of mighty thews., hot passions, and indomitable will, who easily dominate the stories through which they stride. In fiction, the difference between a writer who is a natural storyteller and one who is not is like the difference between a boat that will float and one that will not. If the writer has this quality, we can forgive many other faults; if not, no other virtue can make up for the lack, any more than gleaming paint and sparkling brass on a boat make up for the fact that it will not float.”

Robert E. Howard

~ L. Sprague de Camp, Conan of the Isles, "Introduction", 1968
About

“Seek for a shadow that drifts before a cloud that hides the moon; grope in the dark for a cobra; follow a mist that steals out of the swamp at midnight.”

Robert E. Howard

"The Black Stranger" (1953)

“I have a faculty of memorizing any song or poem as I hear it, many, especially the old Scotch and Irish ballads I heard my grandmother sing when I was but a child.”

Robert E. Howard

From a letter to Robert W. Gordon (February 15, 1926)
Letters