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.

Men are as fickle as women. Women have been kept in servitude so long that if they lack in discernment and intellect it is scarcely their fault.

And Rome – oh, the list is endless there, also - most of them were glorified harlots but better be a glorified harlot than a drab and moral drone, such as the text books teach us woman should be.

I could name all day, those women I deem great in Greece alone and the records would scarcely be complete.

But who is this who rides in silver white Attire that shames the stars across the night? Helmet and shield and corselet all a-gleam, Like some crusader from a drifting dream Upon a prancing jackass shod with flame— Rise, heralds of the …

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 …

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 …

What shall a man say when a friend has vanished behind the doors of Death? A mere tangle of barren words, only words.

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.

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.

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.

I reckon if I ever marry, she will have to be a strong woman in a circus or something.

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

College don't amount to much anyhow. A lot of narrow minded, musty old ideas dispensed 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.

My feet are set on the outward trails And the call of the roistering sea. My wings are spread on the outbound gales And the paths that are long and free.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Mingle my dust with the burning brand, Scatter it free to the sky Fling it wide on the ocean’s sand, From peaks where the vultures fly.

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

I have no fear of the Hereafter. An orthodox hell could hardly be more torture than my life has been.

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.