Quotessence
Home / Books / American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps

American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps

Book by Julian Hawthorne · 9 quotes · Solitary, Solitude, Atmosphere

Filter quotes by topic

AllSolitarySolitudeAtmosphereCharacterChildrenCorruptionDeathDecadenceDeclineDistanceEmotionFantastiqueFearGenreGunsHorrorImaginationIntegrityNaturePistol

American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps Quotes

“After breakfast I spent an hour cleaning my revolver and trying my skill at a target. Jane shook her head, probably thinking that bullets were vain against demonic powers. But Perdita was hugely delighted with the shining little instrument and wanted it for a plaything; women of all ages will play with death! ("Absolute Evil")”

DeathWomenGunsRevolverPistol
Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps
Create image

“Cavenaugh rubbed his hands together and smiled his sunny smile. 'I like that idea. It's reassuring. If we can have no secrets, it means we can't, after all, go so far afield as we might,' he hesitated, 'yes, as we might.' Eastman looked at him sourly. 'Cavenaugh, when you've practiced law in New York for twelve years, you find that people can't go far in any direction, except-' He thrust his forefinger sharply at the floor.'Even in that direction, few people can do anything out of the ordinary. Our range is limited. Skip a few baths, and we become personally objectionable. The slightest carelessness can rot a man's integrity or give him ptomaine poisoning. We keep up only be incessant cleansing operations, of mind and body. What we call character, is held together by all sorts of tacks and strings and glue. ("Consequences")”

CharacterIntegrityCorruptionSecretsDeclineDecadence
Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps
Create image

“It did not occur to me that absence of human companionship does not assure solitude. It may, on the contrary, plunge one into an environment compared with which New York or London would appear deserts. For we take memory and imagination with us. The seabirds that scream overhead or waddle along the margins of the surf; the grotesque forms of twisted cedars; the rustle of sea-grass in the wind; the interminable percussion of the breakers; the dead infinity of the sand itself - there can be no solitude, in the sense of freedom from disturbances of thought, in the presence of such things. They draw us back into the maelstrom. ("Absolute Evil")”

NatureSolitudeSolitary
Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps
Create image

“Human beings across every culture I know about require such stories, stories with cool winds and wood smoke. They speak to something deep within us, the capacity to conceptualize, objectify and find patterns, thereby to create the flow of events and perceptions that find perfect expression in fiction. We are built this way, we create stories by reflex, unstoppably. But this elegant system really works best when the elements of the emerging story, whether is is being written or being read, are taken as literal fact. Almost always, to respond to the particulars of the fantastic as if they were metaphorical or allegorical is to drain them of vitality.”

WritingHorrorStorytellingGenreFantastique
Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps
Create image