“That double curve folding back on itself with the foot uplifted—was it not the dragon of the box? She wiped her eyes, blaming an overstrained nervous system, and looked again. But surely those were scales!” —Elizabeth Walter (The Tibetan Box)
“Thunder shook the ground and thunder shook my heart,
But no storm cloud was above to make the heavens part
Then I saw the nightmarish monstrosity–a creature stride cross my path
Lumbering as an oak, creaking as the pines with two legs it hath.”
—Jeffrey LeBlanc (The Shadow on the Mountain)
“Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart’s desire.
She came—she came—and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.”–Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (The Witch)
“Never mind the John,” I whispered raising the knife, “Just call me Jack!”–Robert Bloch (Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper)
Has the cat got your tongue?–Robert Bloch (Catnip)
“Where’s…the…blood?!
The music—especially that fiery jazz, the cries of laughter, and the aroma of cloves and cayenne kicking up spicy foods, have kept the blood flowing in New Orleans for hundreds of years. For hundreds of years, the blood—the Life, has flowed down the mighty Mississippi into the dark rues, and alleys of the Quarter. And…on more than one occasion, in the city that never sleeps, a fool or the foolhardy has perished.”—Jeffrey LeBlanc (The Devil of Black Bayou (Comedic Short)
“Where’s…the…blood?
The music—especially that fiery jazz, the cries of laughter, and the smell of cloves and cayenne emanating from spicy foods, have kept the blood flowing in New Orleans for hundreds of years. For hundreds of years, Life has flowed down the mighty Mississippi into the dark rues, and alleys of the Quarter. And…on more than one occasion, in the city that never sleeps, a fool or the foolhardy has perished.”—Jeffrey LeBlanc (The Devil of Black Bayou (Comedic Short)
“Twilight gathers and none can save me.
Well and well, for I would not stay:
Let me speak through the stone you grave me:
He never could say what he wished to say.”–Robert E. Howard (Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die) Weird Tales August 1938
“My name would mean nothing to you. As for the shop, let us say that it exists spatially and temporally as I do—when and where necessary for my purposes.”—Robert Bloch (A Most Unusual Murder)
“There was a deep soft thundering in his ears, a rosy dazzlement in his eyes. Somehow the hut appeared to expand, to change luminously about him. He hardly recognized its squalid furnishings, its litter of baleful oddments, on which a torrid splendor was shed by the black candles, tipped with ruddy fire, that towered and swelled gigantically into the softgloom His blood burned as with the throbbing flame of the candles.”—Clark Ashton Smith (Mother of Toads)
“Juliette entered her bedroom, smiling, and a thousand Juliettes smiled back at her.”–Robert Bloch (A Toy For Juliette)
“Well, when he hopped over the fence, the bag caught on the top strand of wire and fell back in the parking lot. I picked it up later and what do you suppose I found inside?’
“I have no idea” I told him. “Don’t keep me in suspense!”
“Dirt!” He answered. “Just plain dirt. Earth dirt.”—Joseph Payne Brennan (Who Was He?)
“Nimuk came closer. Noni saw fear in the animal’s gaze. He could see hunger and suffering in the animal’s labored breathing and awkward movements. Noni’s heart wept. He hated himself and fought against it.”—Hugh B. Cave (Two Were Left)
“Omar Khayyam was right: Hell is the reflection of a soul burning.”–John H. Green (Seven Men in a Tank)
“And the Latin was replaced by an older tongue, ancient when Egypt was young and the Pyramids built, ancient when this Earth still hung in an unformed, boiling firmament of empty gas: “Gyyagin vardar Yogsoggoth! Verminis! Gyyagin! Gyyagin! Gyyagin!”–Stephen King (Jerusalem’s Lot)
