Edgar Rice Burroughs Quotes & Sayings

My civilization is not even skin deep - it does not go deeper than my clothes. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

P56-his reason told him that he was of a different race from his wild and hairy companions — Edgar Rice Burroughs

It is always a foolish thing to contemplate suicide; for no matter how dark the future may appear today, tomorrow may hold for us that which will alter our whole life in an instant, revealing to us nothing but sunshine and happiness. So, for my part, I shall always wait for tomorrow. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Give a Martian woman a chance and death must take a back seat. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

There is much which I have left out; much which I have not dared to tell; but you will find the story of his second search for Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, even more remarkable than was his first — Edgar Rice Burroughs

And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new.
I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had loved her since the first moment my eyes had met hers that first time in the plaza of the dead city of Korad. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

It was his misfortune that most of the men he knew preferred immaculate linen and their clubs to nakedness and the jungle. It was, of course, difficult to understand, yet it was very evident that they did. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Kho closed and sought my jugular with his teeth. He seemed to forget the hatchet dangling by — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I write to escape; to escape poverty. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

the countless unnamed jewels of Mars, — Edgar Rice Burroughs

It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed ability to meet them. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Fear is a relative term and so I can only measure my feelings at that time by what I had experienced in previous positions of danger and by those that I have passed through since; but I can say without shame that if the sensations I endured during the next few minutes were fear, then may God help the coward, for cowardice is of a surety its own punishment. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Twenty years have intervened; for ten of them I lived and fought for Dejah Thoris and her people, and for ten I have lived upon her memory. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

[The little black boy] had seen Tarzan bring down a buck, just as Numa, the lion, might have done ... Tibo had shuddered at the sight, but he had thrilled, too, and for the first time there entered his dull, Negroid mind a vague desire to emulate his savage foster parent. But Tibo, the little black boy, lacked the divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the white boy, to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle. In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name for super-intelligence.
Imagination it is which builds bridges, and cities, and empires. The beasts know it not, the blacks only a little, while to one in a hundred thousand of earth's dominant race it is given as a gift from heaven that man may not perish from the earth. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You are mine. We live here together always in my house. I will bring you the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that roam the jungle. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of the jungle fighters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of the jungle fighters. You are Jane Porter, I saw it in your letter. When you see this you will know that it is for you and that Tarzan of the Apes loves you. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

She did not admire him any more than she had. It was merely that she considered him the Lesser of two evils. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I understand that you belittle all sentiments of generosity and kindness, but I do not, and I can convince your most doughty warrior that these characteristics are not incompatible with an ability to fight. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

From a lofty perch Tarzan viewed the village of thatched huts across the intervening plantation. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

If people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines that I could write stories just as rotten. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass, don't you know. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

It must be that I am dreaming, and that I shall awaken in a moment to see that awful knife descending toward my heart- kiss me, dear, just once before I lose my dream forever.
-Jane- — Edgar Rice Burroughs

For a time Jack was angry; but when he had been without the jacket for a short while he began to realize that being half-clothed is infinitely more uncomfortable than being entirely naked. Soon he did not miss his clothing in the least, and from that he came to revel in the freedom of his unhampered state. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Fortunate indeed are those in which there is combined a little good and a little bad, a little knowledge of many things outside their own callings, a capacity for love and a capacity for hate, for such as these can look with tolerance upon all, unbiased by the egotism of him whose head is so heavy on one side that all his brains run to that point. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

And could she love where she feared? — Edgar Rice Burroughs

What are you Tarzan?" he asked aloud. "An ape or a man? If you are an ape, you will do as the apes do - leave one of your kind in the jungle to die if it suited your whim to go elsewhere.
If you are a man, you will return to protect your kind. You will not run away from one of your own people, because one has run away from you. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I fear that there is something more serious than accident here, Mr. Brently, said the captain. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Love is a strange master, and human nature is still stranger. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Thuvia of Ptarth was having difficulty in determining the exact status of the Prince of Helium in her heart. She — Edgar Rice Burroughs

So this was love! I had escaped it for all the years I had roamed the five continents and their encircling seas; in spite of beautiful women and urging opportunity; in spite of a half-desire for love and a constant search for my ideal, it had remained for me to fall furiously and hopelessly in love with a creature from another world, of a species similar possibly, yet not identical with mine. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tut, tut! I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before speaking. Were I you, Mr. Philander, I should count at least a thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

With man it is different. When he comes many of the larger animals instinctively leave the district entirely, seldom if ever to return; and thus it has always been with the great anthropoids. They flee man as man flees a pestilence. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

It is quite simple, being nothing more than a radium generator diffusing radio-activity in all directions to a distance of a hundred yards or so from the flier. Should — Edgar Rice Burroughs

But it was ever thus. That which has never come within the scope of our really pitifully meager world-experience cannot be - our — Edgar Rice Burroughs

To me there always seems a way to gain the opposite side of an obstacle. If one cannot pass over it, or below it, or around it, why then there is but a single alternative left, and that is to pass through it. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the mad zitidar of fact. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

So glorious does love transfigure its object"~Tarzan — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Help yourselves to equilibrimotors and pray to your ancestors that no air patrol suspects you as you cross the city towards your destination. What think you of this plan, Gor Hajus?" "It is splendid," replied the assassin. "And you, Vad Varo?" "If I knew what an equilibrimotor is I might be in a better position to judge the merits of the plan," I replied. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty without recourse to tiresome mental processes. However that may be, I have never regretted that cowardice is not optional with me. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

For myself, I always assume that a lion is ferocious, and so I am never caught off my guard. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Am I alive and a reality, or am I but a dream? — Edgar Rice Burroughs

But life would be very miserable indeed were I to spend it in terror of the thing that has not yet happened. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

This was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance. At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he had been. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I have long had in mind a plan to thwart death, but it required another with skill equal to mine - two such might live for ever. I have selected you to be that other, for reasons that I already have explained - they are undefiled by sentimentalism. I did not choose you because I love you, or because I feel friendship for you, or because I think that you love me, or feel friendship towards me. I chose you because I knew that of all the inhabitants of a world you were the one least likely to fail me. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I love you, and because I love you I believe in you. But if I did not believe, still should I love. Had you come back for me, and had there been no other way, I would have gone into the jungle with you - forever. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Unfailing courtesy and willingness to be of service. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty without recourse to tiresome mental processes. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be Vice or Virtue? — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, "Tarzan and the Lost Empire", there are 31 books on my list. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

The path of the mighty beast was guided telepathically by the two people who sat in a huge saddle that was cinched to the thoat's broad back. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Those features are burned so deep into my memory and my heart that I should recognize them anywhere in the world from among a thousand others, who might appear identical to any one but me. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

No human mother could have shown more unselfish and sacrificing devotion than did this poor, wild brute for the little orphaned waif whom fate had thrown into her keeping. At — Edgar Rice Burroughs

And yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever; — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Traveling through space is stupifyingly monotonous. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Emerging, as we had, from the dark and gloomy bowels of the earth, the scene before us presented a view of wondrous beauty, and, while doubtless enhanced by contrast, it was nevertheless such an aspect as is seldom given to the eyes, of a Barsoomian of today to view. To me it seemed a little garden spot upon a dying world preserved from an ancient era when Barsoom was young and meteorological conditions were such as to favor the growth of vegetation that has since become extinct over practically the entire area of the planet. In this deep valley, surrounded by lofty cliffs, the atmosphere doubtless was considerably denser than upon the surface of the planet above. The sun's days were reflected by the lofty escarpment, which must also hold the heat during the colder periods of night, and, in addition to this, there was ample water for irrigation which nature might easily have achieved through percolation of the waters of the river through and beneath the top soil of the valley. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I could not blame them, for I knew how strong a hold a creed, however ridiculous it may be, may gain upon an otherwise intelligent people. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I wish to Heaven that I might forget. It would be so much easier than to go through life always remembering what might have been. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I do not think that I am ever overconfident. I am merely wholly confident, and I maintain that there is all the difference in the world there. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

There was but a single forlorn hope, and I took it. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

A thousand times rather face the wild hordes of the dead sea bottoms than meet the eyes of this beautiful young girl and tell her the thing that I must tell her. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

It is the duty of a high priestess to instruct, to interpret - according to the creed that others, wiser than herself, have laid down; but there is nothing in the creed which says that she must believe. The more one knows of one's religion the less one believes - no one living knows more of mine than I. (La of Opar) — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Monuments of historic achievement — Edgar Rice Burroughs

P33- the wail of the living had answered the call of universal motherhood within her wild beast which the dead could not still. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

There was no need for words - at least none that I could imagine, unless Perry desired to pray. And I was quite sure that he would, — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Seizing a cudgel from the nearest priest, he laid about him like a veritable demon as he forged his rapid way toward the altar. The hand of La had paused at the first noise of interruption. When she saw who the author of it was she went white. She had never been able to fathom the secret of the strange white man's escape from the dungeon in which she had locked him. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I loved her. I still love her, though I curse her in my sleep, so nearly one are love and hate, the two most powerful and devasting emotions that control man, nations, life. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

It is a characteristic of the weak and criminal to attribute to others the misfortunes that are the result of their own wickedness. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Why, I never did believe it, — Edgar Rice Burroughs

There was no means by which I might know, and so I chose the center opening as being as likely to lead me in the right direction as another. Here — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I have discovered that the world over, unusual weather prevails at all times of the year. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

P44- in tarzans clever little mind many thoughts revolved and back of these was his divine power of reason. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Your Paris is more dangerous than my savage jungles, Paul," concluded Tarzan, — Edgar Rice Burroughs

At heart they hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and never can attain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die at their hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater than they and they know it — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Imagination is but another name for super intelligence. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

The more one knows of one's religion the less one believes - no one living knows more of mine than I. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I loathed poverty and I would have liked to put my hands on the party who said that poverty is an honorable estate. It is an indication of inefficiency and nothing more. There is nothing honorable or fine about it. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

You are here for but an instant, and you mustn't take yourself too seriously — Edgar Rice Burroughs

If I had followed my better judgment always, my life would have been a very dull one. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

but on Barsoom no man lies; if he does not wish to speak the truth he is silent. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the seeeming necessity for schooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist, we fall naturally and easily into the manner and customs which long usage has implanted ineradicably within us. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers wherever love is known. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

The magnificent diamond locket which hung about Tarzan's neck, had been a source of much wonderment to Jane. She pointed to it now, and Tarzan removed it and handed the pretty bauble to her.
She saw that it was the work of a skilled artisan and that the diamonds were of great brilliancy and superbly set, but the cutting of them denoted that they were of a former day. She noticed too that the locket opened, and, pressing the hidden clasp, she saw the two halves spring apart to reveal in either section an ivory miniature. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

To Jane the strange apparition of this god-like man was as wine to sick nerves. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

THIS IS THE HOUSE OF TARZAN, THE KILLER OF BEASTS AND MANY BLACK MEN. DO NOT HARM THE THINGS WHICH ARE TARZAN'S. TARZAN WATCHES. TARZAN OF THE APES. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

The more one listens to ordinary conversations the more apparent it becomes that the reasoning faculties of the brain take little part in the direction of the vocal organs. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I presume that it is the better part of wisdom that we bow to our fate with as good grace as possible. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

And so he learned to read. From then on his progress was rapid. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the highest type. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

They say that none of us exists, except in the imagination of his fellows, other than as an intangible, invisible mentality. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

In his savage, untutored breast new emotions were stirring. He could not fathom them. He wondered why he felt so great an interest in these people - why he had gone to such pains to save the three men. But he did not wonder why he had torn Sabor from the tender flesh of the strange girl.
Surely the men were stupid and ridiculous and cowardly. Even Manu, the monkey, was more intelligent than they. If these were creatures of his own kind he was doubtful if his past pride in blood was warranted.
But the girl, ah - that was a different matter. He did not reason here. He knew that she was created to be protected, and that he was created to protect her — Edgar Rice Burroughs

No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

THE JOHN CARTER OF MARS COLLECTION .................. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

But this I do know that since you have told me that ten years have elapsed since I departed from this earth I have lost all respect for time - I am commencing to doubt that such a thing exists other than in the weak, finite mind of man. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

And then again, had I declared myself I should have robbed the woman I love of the wealth and position that her marriage to Clayton will now insure to her. I could not have done that - could I, Paul? — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Hundreds of thousands of years ago our ancestors of the dim and distant past faced the same problems which we must face, possibly in these same primeval forests. That we are here today evidences their victory.
What they did may we not do? And even better, for are we not armed with ages of superior knowledge, and have we not the means of protection, defense, and sustenance which science has given us, but of which they were totally ignorant? What they accomplished, Alice, with instruments and weapons of stone and bone, surely that may we accomplish also. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Directly to the apartments of his old friend, — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Dear old Woola," she said; "no love could be deeper than yours, yet it never offends. Would that men might pattern themselves after you! — Edgar Rice Burroughs

The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in a manner of virtue — Edgar Rice Burroughs

As much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulge myself, and just now I had more weighty matters to occupy my time than spilling the blood of strange warriors. — Edgar Rice Burroughs