Robert E. Howard

Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils."Men shall die for this," he said coldly.

— Robert E. Howard

I have never yet done a man to death by torture, but by God, sir, you tempt me!

— Robert E. Howard

The gorilla-slayer moved out into the glade. Massive, terrible, he was the personification of the primitive, the Stone Age. His mouth yawned in a red cavern of a grin; he bore himself with the haughty arrogance of savage might.

— Robert E. Howard

The blare of the trumpets grew louder, like a deep golden tide surge, like the soft booming of the evening tides against the silver beaches of Valusia. The throng shouted, women flung roses from the roofs as the rhythmic chiming of silver hoofs came clearer and the first of the mighty array swung into view in the broad white street that curved round the golden-spired Tower of Splendor.

— Robert E. Howard

Like the surface of the sea was the mirror of Tuzun Thune; hard as the sea in the sun's slanting beams, in the darkness of the stars, where no eye can pierce her deeps; vast and mystic as the sea when the sun smites her in such way that the watcher's breath is caught at the glimpse of tremendous abysses. So was the mirror in which Kull gazed.

— Robert E. Howard

Kull was still mazed. "But being a wizard, having knowledge of all the ages and despising gold, glory, and position, what could Kaanuub offer Tuzun Thune that would make of him a foul traitor?""Gold, power, and position," grunted Brule. "The sooner you learn that men are men whether wizard, king, or thrall, the better you will rule, Kull."

— Robert E. Howard

For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the king’s gaze beyond that strange door, and Kull is less sure of reality since he gazed into the mirrors of Tuzun Thune.

— Robert E. Howard

Fool that I was to trust a Frenchman!

— Robert E. Howard

My sorcerer is rattling his bones," whispered the host, then laughed wildly. "Dying, he swore his very bones would weave a net of death for me. I shackled his corpse to the floor, and now, deep in the night, I hear his bare skeleton clash and rattle as he seeks to be free, and I laugh, I laugh! Ho! ho! How he yearns to rise and stalk like old King Death along these dark corridors when I sleep, to slay me in my bed!

— Robert E. Howard

The men on the Dauntless have disliked the Sea Girl's crew ever since our skipper took their captain to a cleaning on the wharfs of Zanzibar—them being narrow-minded that way. They claimed that the old man had a knuckle-duster on his right, which is ridiculous and a dirty lie. He had it on his left.

— Robert E. Howard

This warrior says you must fight him for the leadership," said Bran, and Kull, eyes glittering with growing battle-joy, nodded: "I guessed as much. Give us space.""I need none," he growled. "Back and give us room to swing our steel!

— Robert E. Howard

Eons ago when your ancestors were defending their caves against the tiger and the mammoth, with crude spears of flint, the gold spires of my people split the stars! They are gone and forgotten, and the world is a waste of barbarians, white and black. Let me, too, pass as a dream that is forgotten in the mists of the ages...

— Robert E. Howard

Kane gazed, awed. This was truly a hell on earth. As in a nightmare he looked into the roaring red cauldron where black insects fought against their doom and perished. The flames leaped a hundred feet in the air, and suddenly above their roar sounded one bestial, inhuman scream like a shriek from across nameless gulfs of cosmic space, as one vampire, dying, broke the chains of silence which had held him for untold centuries. High and haunting it rose, the death cry of a vanishing race.

— Robert E. Howard

And about the table where stood the Dark Man, immovable as a mountain, washed the red waves of slaughter.

— Robert E. Howard

He wondered at the presence of these raiders, for this country lay far to the south of the districts usually frequented by the Moslems. But avarice can drive men far, as the Englishmen knew. He had dealt with these gentry of old. Even as he watched, old scars burned in his back—scars made by Moslem whips in a Turkish galley. And deeper still burned Kane's unquenchable hate.

— Robert E. Howard

What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.

— Robert E. Howard

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.

— 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 sandalled feet.

— Robert E. Howard

They have no hope here or hereafter," answered Conan. "Their gods are Crom and his dark race, who rule over a sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Mitra! The ways of the Aesir were more to my liking.

— Robert E. Howard

Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness...

— Robert E. Howard

Conan sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly and ferociously. "Who dies first?"

— Robert E. Howard

The lions had come into the plateau in great quantities and the herds of little pigs dwindled fast. Those the lions spared, Kane slew, and tossed to the jackals. This racked Kane's heart, for he was a kindly man and this wholesale slaughter, even of pigs who would fall prey to hunting beasts anyhow, grieved him. But it was part of his plan of vengeance and he steeled his heart.

— Robert E. Howard

With a choked cry the Englishman woke from his trance of horror, drew and fired at a darting flame-eyed shadow which fell at his feet with a shattered skull. And Kane gave tongue to one deep, fierce roar and bounded into the melee, all the berserk fury of his heathen Saxon ancestors bursting into terrible being.

— Robert E. Howard

The ancient empires fall, the dark-skinned peoples fade and even the demons of antiquity gasp their last, but over all stands the Aryan barbarian, white-skinned, cold-eyed, dominant, the supreme fighting man of the earth.

— Robert E. Howard

If this myth of the harpies were a reality, what of the other legends—the Hydra, the centaurs, the chimera, Medusa, Pan and the satyrs? All those myths of antiquity—behind them did there lie and lurk nightmare realities with slavering fangs and talons steeped in shuddersome evil? Africa, the Dark Continent, land of shadows and horror, of bewitchment and sorcery, into which all evil things had been banished before the growing light of the western world!

— Robert E. Howard

The Lion strode through the Halls of Hell;When the Lion stalked through the Halls of Hell.

— Robert E. Howard

...Free my hands and I'll varnish this floor with your brains!

— Robert E. Howard

Crom!" his mighty shoulders twitched. "A murrain of these wizardly feuds! Pelias has dealt well with me, but I care not if I see him no more. Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Damnation! What would I not give for a flagon of wine!

— 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

A long bow and a strong bow, and let the sky grow dark!The cord to the nock, the shaft to the ear, and the king of Koth for a mark!

— 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

Not for naught had he gained access into darksome cults, had harkened to the grisly whispers of the votaries of Skelos under midnight trees, and read the forbidden iron-bound books of Vathelos the Blind.

— Robert E. Howard

Reeling up, blood streaming down his face from under his dented helmet, Conan glared dizzily at the profusion of destruction which spread before him. From crest to crest the dead lay strewn, a red carpet that choked the valley. It was like a red sea, with each wave a straggling line of corpses.

— Robert E. Howard

This day you become knights!" he laughed fiercely, pointing with his dripping sword towards the hillmen horses, herded nearby. "Mount and follow me to hell!

— Robert E. Howard

By Crom, I do not like this place, where dead men rise, and sleeping men vanish into the bellies of shadows!

— Robert E. Howard

Conan's hand fell heavily on her naked shoulder."Stand aside, girl," he mumbled. "Now is the feasting of swords."

— Robert E. Howard

The dullest was struck by the contrast between the harsh, taciturn, gloomy commander, and the pirate whose laugh was gusty and ready, who roared ribald songs in a dozen languages, guzzled ale like a toper, and—apparently—had no thought for the morrow.

— Robert E. Howard

When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die," he mumbled, through mashed lips. "But I'd like a flagon of wine.

— 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

If that's true, then answer this priest, why are we in these pits, hiding from some animal?" Conan asked "Someday, when all your civilization and science are likewise swept away, your kind will pray for a man with a sword.

— Robert E. Howard

Conan wheeled toward the gaping corsairs."Well, you dogs!" he roared, "I've sent your chief to hell--what says the law of the Red Brotherhood?"

— Robert E. Howard

Conan stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties which demoralizes anyone who is confronted by an impossible negation of sanity.

— Robert E. Howard

I never saw a man fight as Conan fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before they overpowered him the dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they dragged him down, a hundred against one.

— Robert E. Howard

Conan did not hesitate, nor did he even glance toward the chest that held the wealth of an epoch. With a quickness that would have shamed the spring of a hungry jaguar, he swooped, grasped the girl's arm just as her fingers slipped from the smooth stone, and snatched her up on the span with one explosive heave.

— Robert E. Howard

Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.

— Robert E. Howard

There's nothing in the universe cold steel won't cut," answered Conan. "I threw my ax at the demon, and he took no hurt, but I might have missed in the dusk, or a branch deflected its flight. 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

Civilized men laugh," said Conan. "But not one can tell me how Zogar Sag can call pythons and tigers and leopards out of the wilderness and make them do his bidding. They would say it is a lie, if they dared. That's the way with civilized men. When they can't explain something by their half-baked science, they refuse to believe it.

— Robert E. Howard

He was concerned only with the naked fundamentals of life. The warm intimacies of small, kindly things, the sentiments and delicious trivialities that make up so much of civilized men's lives were meaningless to him. A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs. Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan knew; he could not, and would never, understand the little things that are so dear to civilized men and women.

— Robert E. Howard

… you speak of Venarium familiarly. Perhaps you were there?""I was," grunted [Conan]. "I was one of the horde that swarmed over the hills. I hadn't yet seen fifteen snows, but already my name was repeated about the council fires.

— 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

Did you deem yourself strong, because you were able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that, before I was a full-grown man - like this!

— Robert E. Howard

He grunted with satisfaction. The feel of the hilt cheered him and gave him a glow of confidence. Whatever webs of conspiracy were drawn about him, whatever trickery and treachery ensnared him, this knife was real. The great muscles of his right arm swelled in anticipation of murderous blows.

— Robert E. Howard

Barbarism has its vices, its sophistries, no less than civilization. Your cynicisms and sophistications are weak and childish beside the elemental cynicism, the vital sophistication of what you call savagery. If our virtues were unspoiled as a new-born panther cub, our sins were older than Nineveh.

— Robert E. Howard

"Who are you?" I asked the phantom,As a lover for his bride.

— Robert E. Howard

Poor devils, they'll wake up in hell without knowing how they got there.

— Robert E. Howard

Arus saw a tall powerfully built youth, naked but for a loin-cloth, and sandals strapped high about his ankles. His skin was burned brown as by the suns of the wastelands and Arus glanced nervously at his broad shoulders, massive chest and heavy arms, A single look at the moody, broad-browed features told the watchman the man was no Nemedian. From under a mop of unruly black hair smoldered a pair of dangerous blue eyes. A long sword hung in a leather scabbard at his girdle.

— Robert E. Howard

Arus the watchman grasped his crossbow with shaky hands, and he felt beads of clammy perspiration on his skin as he stared at the unlovely corpse sprawling on the polished floor before him. It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.

— Robert E. Howard

Man," said he, "tell me your name, so that my brothers in Vanaheim may know who was the last of Wulfhere's band to fall before the sword of Heimdul.""Not in Vanaheim," growled the black-haired warrior, "but in Valhalla will you tell your brothers that you met Conan of Cimmeria.

— Robert E. Howard

You cannot escape me!" he roared. "Lead me into a trap and I'll pile the heads of your kinsmen at your feet! Hide from me and I'll tear apart the mountains to find you! I'll follow you to hell!

— Robert E. Howard

Seek for a shadow that drifts before a cloud that hides the moon; grope in the dark for a cobra; follow a mist that steals out of the swamp at midnight.

— Robert E. Howard

The lake-beings about him drew daggers and moved upon Kull. Then the king laughed and set his back against a column, gripping his sword hilt until the muscles stood out on his right arm in great ridges."This is a game I understand, ghosts," he laughed.

— Robert E. Howard

A great poet is greater than any king.

— Robert E. Howard

The King is only a slave like yourself, locked with heavier chains.

— Robert E. Howard

By This Axe I Rule!

— Robert E. Howard

Slowly the pale-faced noblemen and frightened women knelt, bowing in fear and reverence to the bloodstained giant who towered above them with his eyes ablaze."I am king!"

— Robert E. Howard

Silence lay like a white shroud over all. Kane wrenched his dirk clear and a trickle of seeping blood followed sluggishly, then ceased. The Puritan mechanically swished the blade through the air to shake off the red drops which clung to the steel, and as it flashed in the lanthorn light, it seemed to Jack Hollinster to glitter like a blue flame—a flame which had been quenched in scarlet.

— Robert E. Howard

It has fallen upon me, now and again in my sojourns through the world, to ease various evil men of their lives...

— Robert E. Howard

I cannot believe in a paradiseFor I have lived on earth.

— Robert E. Howard

To the mistress of all true adventurers!" he whispered, choking on his own blood. "To the Lady Death!

— Robert E. Howard

Verily, the star of Azrael hovers over the birth of a beautiful woman, the King of the Dead laughs aloud, and ravens whet their black beaks.

— 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

When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in... Who will our invaders be? From whence will they come?

— Robert E. Howard

If men are to meet steel with steel, they should be adequately armed. Long spears and short swords to meet a charge of long swords. If you dont believe that, read the chronicles of Rome and Macedonia.

— Robert E. Howard

I walk from five to fifteen miles a day, no exaggeration, soliciting clothes and delivering them and when I’m not doing that I wash and clean clothes. Not an overly pleasant occupation but I like it all right. I work on commision and ought to make about $40 per month, some months more.

— Robert E. Howard

I see in the papers where Roy Guthrie committed suicide. Why, I wonder?

— Robert E. Howard

Also, there was a rape over in the Cisco country. Man about forty and a girl about five. They didnt hang him. A guy can get away with nearly anything in this part of the country.

— 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

I heard from Truett that you fellows are forbidden the company of the girl you were going with. Thats a dirty shame. How come? I suppose its because you tried to act like gentlemen.

— 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

My body seems a mere encumbrance to me; an imbecillic wagon, hitched to the horse of desire, which is the soul.

— Robert E. Howard

Mingle my dust with the burning brand,From peaks where the vultures fly.

— Robert E. Howard

By the way, I sold another story, same company. “Wolfshead” twentyfive pages $40.00. After reading it, I’m not altogether sure I wasnt off my noodler when I wrote it.

— Robert E. Howard

Rome got some peachy pastings when she tried to lick the Irish.

— Robert E. Howard

Come, my friend, let us cuss things in general.

— Robert E. Howard

In the hill country, civilization steals in last, and the people retain much of the crude but vigorous mode of expression of the colonial days and earlier.

— Robert E. Howard

I have a faculty of memorizing any song or poem as I hear it, many, especially the old Scotch and Irish ballads I heard my grandmother sing when I was but a child.

— Robert E. Howard

My feet are set on the outward trailsAnd the paths that are long and free.

— Robert E. Howard

College dont amount to much anyhow. A lot of narrow minded, musty old ideas despensed by uninterested teachers to pupils who have come to college for athletics, because they considered it the stylish thing or to keep from going to work.

— Robert E. Howard

Don’t you think that as a people, Americans have less poetry, real poetry, in their souls than any other nations?

— 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

I mean 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

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

Hell, the world isn’t worth reforming or even aiding as I can see. Men are swine and most women are fools. Befriend a man and he’ll betray you. Fondle a woman and she’ll double-cross you – whip her and she’ll cringe to you.

— 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

Money and muscle, that’s what I want; to be able to do any damned thing I want and get away with it. Money won’t do that altogether, because if a man is a weakling, all the money in the world won’t enable him to soak an enemy himself; on the other hand, unless he has money he may not be able to get away with it.

— Robert E. Howard

I'm not going to vote. I won't vote for a Catholic and I won't vote for a damned Republican. Maybe I've said that before. My ancestors were all Catholic and not very far back. And I have reason to hate the church.

— 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

But who is this who rides in silver whiteRise, heralds of the past, bray forth his name

— Robert E. Howard

I believe, like you, that civilization is a natural and inevitable consequence, whether good or evil I am not prepared to state.

— Robert E. Howard

If I was wealthy I'd never do anything but poke around in ruined cities all over the world - and probably get snake-bit.

— Robert E. Howard

I'll say one thing about an oil boom; it will teach a kid that Life's a pretty rotten thing as quick as anything I can think of.

— 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

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

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

— 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 wrote my first story when I was fifteen, and sent it—to Adventure, I believe. Three years later I managed to break into Weird Tales. Three years of writing without selling a blasted line. (I never have been able to sell to Adventure; guess my first attempt cooked me with them for ever!)

— Robert E. Howard

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

— Robert E. Howard