Robert E. Howard quotes

Robert E. Howard was an American author, best known as the creator of Conan the Barbarian. His stories helped shape the sword and sorcery genre in fantasy literature. He left a lasting legacy through his vivid imagination and influential characters. Here are 159 of his quotes:

But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood.

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.

Robert E. Howard

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

Robert E. Howard

I am unable to rouse much interest in any highly civilized race, country or epoch, including this one.

Robert E. Howard

A great poet is greater than any king.

Robert E. Howard

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

Robert E. Howard

When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in... Who will our invaders be? From whence will they come?

Robert E. Howard

I don't believe I ever saw an Oklahoman who wouldn't fight at the drop of a hat - and frequently drop the hat himself.

Robert E. Howard

Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.

Robert E. Howard

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.

Robert E. Howard

Aye, you white dog, you are like all your race; but to a black man gold can never pay for blood.

Robert E. Howard

I see in the papers where Roy Guthrie committed suicide. Why, I wonder?

Robert E. Howard

It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.

Robert E. Howard

Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

Robert E. Howard

The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!

Robert E. Howard

What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs-I was a man before I was a king.

Robert E. Howard

Coming, as I do, from mountain folk on one side and sea followers on the other, there are few old songs of the hills or the sea with which I am not familiar.

Robert E. Howard

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

Robert E. Howard

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

Robert E. Howard

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

Robert E. Howard

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 to move me just that way.

Robert E. Howard

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

Robert E. Howard