Various

“ At second glance they did not really resemble any cloud forms we had ever seen; for about them there was a baffling suggestion of weight and solidity. Moving sluggishly into the heavens above the pass, they preserved their original contours and their separateness. They seemed to swell and tower, coming toward us on the blue air from which, as yet, no lightest stirring of wind had reached us. Floating thus, they maintained the rectitude of massive columns or of giants marching on a broad plain. ”

“ I doubt that there are 150,000 people in this country of 125,000,000 who can really appreciate the science and weird fiction that is published in contemporary magazines. They are what you call 'class' publications. And not one reader in five hundred of these fantasy magazines is the least bit interested in the "fan" angle—but those of them that are are loyal to the last. ”

“ The highest intellects have always delighted in poetic fantasy and philosophic paradox, knowing well that the universe itself is multiform fantasy and paradox, and that everything perceived or conceived as actuality is merely one phase of that which has or may have innumerable aspects. ”

“ The Indian made no comment, pointing impassively toward the far summit with its crown of ruins. We hurried on, wishing to complete our journey by daylight; and plunging into an abysmal valley, we began at mid-afternoon the ascent of the slope toward the city.
We were impressed anew by the abnormal and manifold cleavages of the granite. It was like climbing amid the overthrown and fire-blasted blocks of a Titan citadel. Everywhere the slope was rent into huge, obliquely angled masses, often partly vitrified, which made the ascent a more arduous problem than we had expected. ”

“ Chimeras are no longer the mode, the infinite has been abolished; mystery is obsolete, and sphinx and medusa are toys for children. The weird and the unearthly are outlawed, and all mundane impossibilities (which, it may be, are the commonplaces of the Pleiads) have been banished to some limbo of literalistic derision. ”

“ I have seen wretched and depressed women feed with their milk the famished spirits that swelter and moulder amid the rank noisomeness of charnel hells. By blue and rotting trees I have seen colossal and cankered white worms fawning to their young and devouring themselves. ”

“ They are the only ones that are interested in the fan magazines, so you can see why the aforementioned fan magazines will never boast of circulations comparing with Liberty or the Saturday Evening Post or pay $500 for a cover illustration. Therefore, the only way to keep fan magazines is to secure every available active fan, those rare specimens, and keep them together in one big family. Of course, a few more spring up every here and there when otherwise normal people discover that there is such a thing as fantasy fiction and fan magazines. ”

“ Why this thirst for literalism, for nothing but direct anthropological data, which would proscribe the infinitudes of imagination, would bar all that can lift us, even in thought, above the interests of the individual or the species? ”

“ A very flourishing, though till recently quite hidden branch of weird literature, is that of the Jews, kept alive and nourished in obscurity by the sombre heritage of early Eastern magic, apocalyptic literature, and cabbalism. ”

“ I do not whistle in the dark, I have never gone in for Dream Books or psychoanalysis, and I make a habit of walking under ladders when it is more convenient to do this than circumambulate the obstruction. ”

“ Let us examine these amazing dicta, fathered, as they must be, by people whose literal-mindedness can be surpassed only by that of their "four-footed betters." Surely it is axiomatic that in thought or art we deal not with things themselves, but with concepts of things. ”

“ In short, all pipe-dreams, all fantasies not authorized by Freudianism, by sociology, and the five senses, are due for the critical horse-laugh, when, through ignorance, effrontery, or preference, they find a place in the subject-matter of some author unlucky enough to have been born into the age of Jeffers, Hemingway, and Joyce. ”

“ Two youthful Merritt fans burglarized the basement of a certain Carnegie Library and made off with old Science and Inventions containing "The Metal Emperor".
Robert E. Howard's occupation is fiction-writing, though he helps his father (a physician) attend to a small farm on the outskirts of Cross Plains, Texas. He is 27 years old and has led a somewhat roving and adventurous life. He is an amateur athlete and boxer; is very fond of fighting and believes barbarism to be preferable to civilization. ”

“ Cabbalism itself, so prominent during the Middle Ages, is a system of philosophy explaining the universe as emanations of the Deity, and involving the existence of strange spiritual realms and beings apart from the visible world, of which dark glimpses may be obtained through certain secret incantations. ”

“ We had left our three llamas at the slope's bottom, merely taking with us provisions for a night. Thus unhampered, we made fair progress in spite of the ever-varying obstacles offered by the shattered scarps. After a while we came to the hewn steps of a stairway mounting to the summit; but the steps had been wrought for the feet of colossi, and, in many places, they were part of the heaved and tilted ruin; so they did not greatly facilitate our climbing.
The sun was still high above the western pass behind us ”

“ Of course, the circulation has gone up way past the mark where it half pays for the issue, certain months—due to advertising in Wonder Stories Science Fiction Swap Column under cover and the mention that Farnsworth Wright gave THE FANTASY FAN is in the Eyrie in the September 1934 issue of Weird Tales, not to speak of the co-operation of the readers we already had—but that is not enough. ”

“ So, if you really like our little publication, will you do your best to help bring in the subscriptions? The next issue will be published in anywhere from three weeks to two months, depending entirely upon cash receipts. And here is an amazing fact—every dollar sent in actually brings the next issue days nearer publication. What do you say? Wouldn't you hate to see THE FANTASY FAN break off publication, and right in the middle of Lovecraft's article, too? ”

“ The Semitic mind, like the Celtic and Teutonic, seems to possess marked mystical inclinations; and the wealth of underground horror-lore surviving in ghettoes and synagogues must be much more considerable than is generally imagined. ”

“ He is a profound historic student, and an authority on the folklore and tradition of the Southwest.
August W. Derleth is 24—U. of Wis. graduate and lives in Sauk City, Wis. He is gaining fame in magazines of select quality with serious reminiscent regional fiction and poetry. He writes mystery books besides fantasy.
ON FANTASY by Clark Ashton Smith
We have been told that literature dealing with the imaginative and fantastic is out of favour among the Intellectuals, whoever they are. Only the Real, whatever that is or may be, is admissible for treatment ”

“ Four of these tales appeared under various pseudonyms, but the cover design story was published under her own name.... G. G. Pendarves, famous weird author, is the pen-name of an Englishwoman.... Her real name is Miss G. Gordon Trenery; she is now selling stories to some of the English magazines under the name of Gordon Trenery.... And remember Hugh Davidson, author of "The Vampire Master," "Snake Man," and other WT thrillers? Well, Davidson is the pseudonym for none other than Edmond Hamilton! ”