The Macabre


Advice to a Young Ghoul

The dangers to vampires are few, but are always very severe when encountered.

Traci Brieri, The Vampire Journals, p. 120

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The Dark Quest

My inner life soon became a ghoulish feast of eldritch, tantalizing horrors.

Robert Bloch, The Shambler from the Stars

I longed to learn the songs the demons sing as they swoop between the stars, or hear the voices of the olden gods as they whisper their secrets to the echoing void. I yearned to know the terrors of the grave; the kiss of maggots on my tongue, the cold caress of a rotting shroud upon my body. I thirsted for the knowledge that lies in the pits of mummied eyes, and burned for wisdom known only to the worm. Then I could really write, and my hopes be truly realized.

Robert Bloch, The Shambler from the Stars

Prodded by some unfathomable urge, I have given my whole life to the quest of unholy mysteries. I came here for nothing else, and will not quarrel with fate.

H. P. Lovecraft and William Lumley, The Diary of Alonzo Typer, 306

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Dating Techniques

Do you have to open graves to find girls to fall in love with?

The Mummy (movie)

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The Evil that Lies in Books

He knew, even before he opened that accursed tome, that it was evil. The musty scent that rose from those antique pages carried with it the reek of the tomb. The faded leaves were maggoty at the edges, and rats had gnawed the leather; rats which perchance had a ghastlier food for common fare.

Robert Bloch, The Shambler from the Stars

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Faith and Superstition

And superstition! What is it but distrust in God!

Mary Cholmondeley, Let Loose, in Dracula's Brood, ed. Richard Dalby

Bad luck isn't caused by broken mirrors, but by broken minds.

Frank, in the movie Suspiria, dir. Dario Argento

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If Only it Were True

Ultimate horror often paralyzes memory in a merciful way.

H. P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls

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London A-Z

Then I got a corpse—you can always get a body in London if you know where to go for it.

John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Chapter 1

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The Mad Scientist

There was something morbid in the quick narrowing of his eyes at her casual mention of good health. What was he thinking? To what unnatural extreme was his passion for experiment about to be pushed? Wherein lay the special significance of her pure blood and absolutely flawless organic state?

H. P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro, The Last Test

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A Taste for Terror

He was about to pause and usher Zamacona inside the vast curved facade, when the Spaniard, recalling the mutilated forms he had seen in the fields, violently demurred. This was the first of those friendly clashes of taste which were to convince the people of Tsath that their guest followed strange and narrow standards.

H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, The Mound 145

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Those Who Went Too Far

James, if ever you wish any man well, tell him to keep clear of the ancient, hidden places of the earth.

H. P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro, The Last Test

All at once Peter knew what was meant by the allusion to the "seventh tongue in the seventh head," and wished that the meaning had remained forever obscured from his brain.

Robert Bloch, The Opener of the Way

Truly, there are terrible primal arcana of earth which had better be left unknown and unevoked; dread secrets which have nothing to do with man, and which man may learn only in exchange for peace and sanity; cryptic truths which make the knower evermore an alien among his kind, and cause him to walk alone on earth.

H. P. Lovecraft and William Lumley, The Diary of Alonzo Typer, 306

"Never mix up with secret and ultimate horror, young man, if you value your immortal soul."

H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, Medusa's Coil, 194

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© Copyright 1996-1999 by Joseph Morales