It is good to be a cynic - it is better to be a contented cat - and it is best not to exist at all.

The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination.

But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.

Maybe, just maybe, I should not have used the word "eldritch" so many times now that I think about it.

Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.

All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.

I have seen the dark universe yawning Where the black planets roll without aim, Where they roll in their horror unheeded, Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.