Clark Ashton Smith

In his bleak mercy, Death forever strips The soul of light and memory, rendering blind Our vision, lest surmounted deeps appal, As…

— Clark Ashton Smith

“We don’t know whether they’re going to eat us or elect us for their tribal deities.”

— Clark Ashton Smith

“Things have crept in from nether space, whose incursion is forbid by the watchful gods of all proper and well-ordered lands; but…

— Clark Ashton Smith

Bow down, I am the emperor of dreams.

— Clark Ashton Smith

“To me, the best, if not the only function of imaginative writing, is to lead the human imagination outward, to take it…

— Clark Ashton Smith

“Stern and white as a tomb, older than the memory of the dead, and built by men or devils beyond the recording…

— Clark Ashton Smith

“In one picture, the pool was half hidden by a fringe of mace- weeds, and the dead willow was leaning across it…

— Clark Ashton Smith

Not as the plants and flowers of Earth, growing peacefully beneath a simple sun, were the blossoms of the planet Lophai. Coiling…

— Clark Ashton Smith

Only the impossible has any real charm; the possible has been vulgarized by happening too often.

— Clark Ashton Smith

“in the days when the world begins to bleach and shrivel, and the sun is blotched with death. Socialist and Individualist, they'll…

— Clark Ashton Smith

There have been times when only a hair's-breadth has intervened betwixt myself and the seething devil-ridden world of madness; for the hideous…

— Clark Ashton Smith

“The sand of the desert of Yondo is not as the sand of other deserts; for Yondo lies nearest of all to…

— Clark Ashton Smith

“Tell me tales of inconceivable fear and unimaginable love, in orbs whereto our sun is a nameless star, or unto which its…

— Clark Ashton Smith

“the people were steeped in the crepuscular gloom of antiquity; and were wise with all manner of accumulated lore; and were subtle…

— Clark Ashton Smith