Quotes by Robert E. Howard

About Robert E. Howard:

Robert Ervin Howard is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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...

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...

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

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

The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!

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 h...

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 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...

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

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

I became a writer in spite of my environments.

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

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

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

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

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

Robert E. Howard

All fled—all done, so lift me on the pyre— The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.

Robert E. Howard

It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known...

Robert E. Howard

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, bi...

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

Author Bio

  • NameRobert E. Howard
  • DescriptionAmerican author
  • AliasesRobert Ervin Howard; REH; R. E. Howard; Robert Howard; Two-Gun Bob; Bob Howard
  • BornJanuary 22, 1906
  • DiedJune 11, 1936
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist
  • WorksThe Hour Of The Dragon; Worms Of The Earth; Pigeons From Hell