Robert E. Howard Quotes & Sayings

I have put off the past like a worn-out cloak. — Robert E. Howard

There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage," answered the Cimmerian — Robert E. Howard

The poem you sent me was as fiery and virile as anything you've ever written - or anybody else, for that matter. Especially the second part went to my brain like the flaming liquor of insanity. No one else besides Jack London has the power to move me just that way. — Robert E. Howard

the skin was yellow, the eyes slightly slanted; — Robert E. Howard

But when the next time approached for the full moon, I began to be aware of a strange, malicious influence. An atmosphere of horror hovered in the air and I was aware of inexplicable, uncanny impulses. — Robert E. Howard

When you allow the elevation of a man, one can be sure that you'll profit by his advancement. — Robert E. Howard

Well, I like a good hater. But that can wait. — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

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

Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness ... — Robert E. Howard

The tall Khitan lifted his head and gazed at Publio, so that the merchant broke into a profuse sweat.
"What do you wish of me?" he stuttered.
"A ship," answered the Khitan. "A ship well manned for a long voyage."
"For how long a voyage?" stammered Publio, never thinking of refusing.
"To the ends of the world, perhaps," answered the Khitan, "or to the molten seas of hell that lie beyond the sunrise. — Robert E. Howard

Time and times are but cogwheels, unmatched, grinding on oblivious to one another. Occasionally - oh, very rarely! - the cogs fit; the pieces of the plot snap together momentarily and give men faint glimpses beyond the veil of this everyday blindness we call reality. — Robert E. Howard

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

A kingdom is not lost by a single defeat. — Robert E. Howard

I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. 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. — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

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

Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat & stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame crimson, and I am content ... Conan the Cimmerian. — Robert E. Howard

He saw no particular humor in it, and was too new to civilization to understand its discourtesies. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. He was bewildered and chagrined, and doubtless would have slunk away, abashed, but the Kothian chose — Robert E. Howard

You black dog!" A red mist of fury swept across Conan's eyes. "Were I free I'd give you a broken back! — Robert E. Howard

Never the less, it is no light thing to enter into a profession absolutely foreign and alien to the people among which one's lot is cast; a profession which seems as dim and faraway and unreal as the shores of Europe. — Robert E. Howard

It was made from the black lotus, whose blossoms wave in the lost jungles of Khitai, where only the yellow-skulled priests of Yun dwell. Those blossoms strike dead any who smell of them. — Robert E. Howard

He was no defensive fighter; even in the teeth of overwhelming odds he always carried the war to the enemy. — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

By this axe I rule! — Robert E. Howard

I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, & am content. — Robert E. Howard

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

They trapped the Lion on Shamu's plain; They weighted his limbs with an iron chain; They cried aloud in the trumpet-blast, They cried, "The lion is caged at last!" Woe to the Cities of river and plain If ever the Lion stalks again! - Old Ballad. — Robert E. Howard

I think the real reason so many youngsters are clamoring for freedom of some vague sort, is because of unrest and dissatisfaction with present conditions; I don't believe this machine age gives full satisfaction in a spiritual way, if the term may be allowed. — Robert E. Howard

A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs. — Robert E. Howard

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

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

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

The black went down like a felled tree, gushing blood, — Robert E. Howard

I reckon if I ever marry, she will have to be a strong woman in a circus or something. — Robert E. Howard

It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight. — Robert E. Howard

What always was must always be. — Robert E. Howard

Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet. — Robert E. Howard

Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight. Conan was no longer aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythmical waves of sound. Transported beyond his age and his own individuality, he was seeing the transmutation of the being men called Khosatral Khel which crawled up from Night and the Abyss ages ago to clothe itself in the substance of the material universe. — Robert E. Howard

Rome got some peachy pastings when she tried to lick the Irish. — Robert E. Howard

Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. — Robert E. Howard

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

The sea-road is good for wanderers and landless men. There is quenching of thirst on the grey paths of the winds, and the flying clouds to still the sting of lost dreams. — Robert E. Howard

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

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

Then, since all great poets are strange in their speech and actions, he must have achieved great fame, for his actions and conversations were the strangest of any man I ever knew. — Robert E. Howard

He was ... a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan ... A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things ... Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect - he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane. — Robert E. Howard

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

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

Barbarism is the natural state of mankind, — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

I have gone into yesterday and tomorrow and both were as real as today
which is like the dreams of ghosts! — Robert E. Howard

The printed page was like wine to me. — Robert E. Howard

the mere fact of a black figure racing across the landscape carrying a white captive was bizarre enough, — Robert E. Howard

Men spoke of tribal war, of a gathering of vultures in the southeast, and a terrible leader who led his swiftly increasing hordes to victory. — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

Suddenly the black torturer laid down the pipes and rose, towering over the writhing white figure. — Robert E. Howard

Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine
You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine.
The throne that I won by blood and sweat , by Crom, I will not sell
For promise of valleys filled with gold, or threat of the Halls of Hell! — Robert E. Howard

not trouble his head about them; he knew that Zamora's religion, like all things of a civilized, longsettled people, was intricate and complex, and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals. — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

One objection I have heard voiced to works of this kind-dealing with Texas-is the amount of gore spilled across the pages. It can not be otherwise. In order to write a realistic and true history of any part of the Southwest, one must narrate such things, even at the risk of monotony. — Robert E. Howard

I have come to believe that mankind eternally hovers on the brinks of secret oceans of which it knows nothing. — Robert E. Howard

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

MUSINGS
The little poets sing of little things:
Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings;
Lovers who kissed and then were made as one,
And modest flowers waving in the sun.
The mighty poets write in blood and tears
And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears.
They reach their mad blind hands into the night,
To plumb abysses dead to human sight;
To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled,
Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world.
[click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby] — Robert E. Howard

The moon rose, striking fire from the Cimmerian's horned helmet. No call awoke the echoes; yet suddenly the night grew tense and the jungle held its breath. Instinctively Conan loosened the great sword in its sheath. — Robert E. Howard

I am unable to rouse much interest in any highly civilized race, country or epoch, including this one. — Robert E. Howard

When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die. — Robert E. Howard

When the oceans drown the world, women will take time for jealousy. — Robert E. Howard

A pantherish twist and shift of his body avoided the blundering rush of two yellow swordsmen, and the blade of one missing its objective, was sheathed in the breast of the other. A — Robert E. Howard

One man's bane is another's bliss. — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

They realize their ultimate doom, but they are fatalists, incapable of resistance or escape. Not one of the present generation has been out of sight of these walls. — Robert E. Howard

My characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They're rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed. — Robert E. Howard

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

They take little interest in waking life, choosing to lie most of the time in death-like sleep." "Then — Robert E. Howard

The wild hetman stood like a statue for a space, dimly grasping something of the cosmic tragedy of the fitful ephemera called mankind and the hooded shapes of darkness which prey upon it. — Robert E. Howard

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. — Robert E. Howard

Any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul. — Robert E. Howard

The only safe enemy was a headless enemy. — Robert E. Howard

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. - The Road of Kings. The — Robert E. Howard

I have not been a success, and probably never will be. — Robert E. Howard

These figures are black, yet they are not like negroes. I have never seen their like." "Let — Robert E. Howard

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

Over the souls of men spread the condor wings of colossal monsters and all manner of evil things prey upon the heart and soul and body of Man. Yet it may be in some far day the shadows shall fade and the Prince of Darkness be chained forever in his hell. And till then mankind can but stand up stoutly to the monsters in his own heart and without, and with the aid of God he may yet triumph. — Robert E. Howard

Conan mentally termed the creatures black men, for lack of a better term; instinctively he knew that these tall ebony beings were not men, as he understood the term. No — Robert E. Howard

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

Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. — Robert E. Howard

Every twinge of sensation, even of agony, was a negation of death. — Robert E. Howard

I became a writer in spite of my environments. — Robert E. Howard

Lift that scimitar against me, you Hyrkanian pig and I'll gut you where you stand! — Robert E. Howard

The five-foot blade crushed Strabonus' casque and skull, and the king's charger reared screaming, hurling a limp and sprawling corpse from the saddle. A great cry went up from the host, which faltered and gave back. — Robert E. Howard

Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead. — Robert E. Howard

Never the less, at the age of fifteen, having never seen a writer, a poet, a publisher or a magazine editor, and having only the vaguest ideas of procedure, I began working on the profession I had chosen. — Robert E. Howard

A true fanatic, his promptings were reasons enough for his actions. — Robert E. Howard

It was passed on by the hook-nosed herdsmen of the grasslands, from the dwellers in tents to the dwellers in the squat stone cities where kings with curled blueblack beards worshipped round-bellied gods with curious rites. — Robert E. Howard

Some mechanism in my sub-consciousness took the dominant characteristics of various prize-fighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers, and honest workmen I had come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian. — Robert E. Howard

Men are but men, and the greatest men are they who soonest learn the simpler things. — Robert E. Howard

No man can be convinced when he will not. — Robert E. Howard

It is only the promise of death that makes life worth living. — Robert E. Howard

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