“My readers understand now something of the nature of a false position.”

“Their false compassion is called compassion and their false understanding is called understanding, for this is their most potent spell.”

“.. to change something you do not understand is the true nature of evil.”

“But naturally people fussed and objected like they always do when someone tries to do something positive.”

“Popular presentation today is all too often that which puts the mob in a position to talk about something without understanding it.”

“No position is so false as having understood and still remaining alive.”

“Three imaginary readers looked over my shoulder while I was writing, and I now dedicate the book to them. […] First the general reader, the layman […] second the expert [and] third the student.”

“A ghost story of which the scene is laid in the twelfth or thirteenth century may succeed in being romantic or poetical: it will never put the reader into the position of saying to himself: "If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!"”

“And now you'll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won't be false, and they won't be true
but they'll be real”

“I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.”