Weird Tales Quotes & Sayings

Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales, dead languages, weird folk beliefs, fascinating religions, and more. — Laini Taylor

Being the reader of a dark fairy tale is much like being the hero of one. Our lives are filled with pain, boredom, and fear. We want to venture into the dark wood, to see the oddities and the beauties it holds, and to test ourselves against them. So we pick up a book of fairy tales. The real ones. THe weird ones. The dark ones. We see oddities and beauties galore. We test our courage and our understanding. Finally, we put the book down and return to our lives. And hopefully, just like the hero of the fairy tale, we return stronger, richer, and wiser. In difficult times - of recession and violence and political bitterness - we long for a dark forest to which we can escape; and from which we can return, better than we were before. — Adam Gidwitz

There are many wrong reasons to want to be an entrepreneur. I think there's only one good reason: to change the world. — Phil Libin

In the old fairy tales, often a 'moral' was tacked on at the end of the story - say, if a book was going to be marketed to young readers. And the morals don't really suit the stories at all, which makes them super weird - part of why I love the tradition so much. I do play with this, though I am more concerned with ethics than morals. — Kate Bernheimer

Because Fascism is a lie, it is condemned to literary sterility. And when it is past, it will have no history, except the bloody history of murder. — Ernest Hemingway,

Bithia seemed wise in the ways of the world, but she was completely ignorant of what she brought upon herself. Commerce with the powers of darkness might gain her what she desired for the moment, but at what cost in the end? — Francine Rivers

Stuff that's truly off-trail was what appealed to 'Weird Tales' editors. — Robert Weinberg

THRILLING NARRATIVES OF MUTINY, MURDER AND PIRACY, A WEIRD SERIES OF Tales of Shipwreck and Disaster, FROM THE EARLIEST PART OF THE CENTURY TO THE PRESENT TIME, WITH ACCOUNTS OF Providential Escapes AND HEART-RENDING FATALITIES. — Anonymous

A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. By contrast, a woman's presence ... defines what can and cannot be done to her. — John Berger

You don't get the good shots sitting on your ass in the bad weather- Mark Johnson — Alan Place

That is, I fancy, the true doctrine on the subject of Tales of Terror and such things, which unless a man of letters do well and truly believe, without doubt he will end by blowing his brains out or by writing badly. Man, the central pillar of the world must be upright and straight; around him all the trees and beasts and elements and devils may crook and curl like smoke if they choose. All really imaginative literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul. — G.K. Chesterton

We all have the power of light inside us, it's just that sometimes the darkness is stronger. Fear is like darkness, too. It can consume you. It will consume you. And when you let it consume you, it'll be hard as hell to break free from it. You have to fight it. — J. G. Whit

Just a minute," said Lobsang. "Who are you? Time has stopped, the world is given over to ... fairy tales and monsters, and there's a schoolteacher walking around?"
"Best kind of person to have," said Susan. "We don't like silliness. Anyway, I told you. I've inherited certain talents."
"Like living outside of time?"
"That's one of them."
"It's a weird talent for a schoolteacher!"
"Good for marking, though," said Susan calmly. — Terry Pratchett

We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us. — Alain De Botton

Holiday Inn comes in at the bottom of the market, but they can't go upmarket except if they emulate the Four Seasons. So they can go up, but they have to emulate the people they're trying to compete against. They can't disrupt them, because there isn't anything about their model that is extendable upmarket. — Clayton M Christensen

Don't be too worthwhile. Always keep a few character defects handy. People love to talk about your frailties.If you must be noble, keep it to yourself — Edward Stone

There was one person who greatly and directly benefited my career
my agent Virginia Kidd. From 1968 to the late nineties she represented all my work, in every field except poetry. I could send her an utterly indescribable story, and she'd sell it to Playboy or the Harvard Law Review or Weird Tales or The New Yorker
she knew where to take it. She never told me what to write or not write, she never told me, That won't sell, and she never meddled with my prose. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Three thousand years have not changed the human condition in this respect; we are still lovers and victims of the will to violence, and so long as we are, Homer will be read as its truest interpreter. — Homer

At this point, a few words on this term 'horror' are perhaps called for. Some amateurs of this kind of literature engage in endless hairsplitting disputes, centered around this word and its close companion 'terror', as to which' stories may so be categorized and which may not, and whether or not descriptions such as weird or fantasy or macabre are preferable. The designation 'horror', with its connotations of revulsion, satisfies me no more than it does the purists but I believe that it is the only term which embraces all the stories in this collection and which succinctly suggests to the majority of readers what is in store for them. Horror then, in this instance, covers tales of the Supernatural and of physical terror, of ghosts and necromancy and of inhuman violence and all the dark corners and crevices of human belief and behavior that lie in between. ("An Age In Horror" - introduction) — Michel Parry

I see all mythology as one tradition, a way of disseminating knowledge that must come to us in code so that we can live sanely with it, since some forms of knowledge are too dark, or too complex, to be plainly spoken. And so we have these weird (and also sometimes entertaining and surprising and heartening) tales that belong to all of us. — Helen Oyeyemi

I am extremely close to my brother, Kent, and my sister, Lauren, who have been remarkably understanding about all of my weird sibling tales. — Karen Russell

I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors. — H.P. Lovecraft

The one test of the really weird (story) is simply this
whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim. — H.P. Lovecraft

In a technologically rich society, it is easy to forget. With everything made and packaged in plastic and ready to eat, within a couple of generations even an activity as basic as knowing how to cook your own dinner becomes a fundamental threat to survival. — Victor L. Machin

Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful. — Jack Vance

Other kids' parents wouldn't let them read magazines like 'Weird Tales,' but my folks were big readers themselves, so they didn't mind. — Robert Weinberg

Richard Gavin is one of the bright new stars in contemporary weird fiction. His richly textured style, deft character portrayal, and powerful horrific conceptions make every one of his tales a pleasure to read. — S.T. Joshi

Fairy tales, because they have a very clear structure, are easier to interfere with. Also they have this really weird logic: the kind of logic that you only really experience when you're not feeling very well, or as a child. — Helen Oyeyemi

I feel any time you enter a dream world it's like you're working out things, it's all inside your mind and you're working it out, be it Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, or the kids in Narnia, they go through this weird journey that's not real, and they're going through this journey psychologically. It's that journey of discovery, of getting onself together, that fantasy and fairy tales are so good at. And while some people still look upon them as completely unrealistic, for me they're more real than most things that are perceived as real. — Tim Burton