Algernon Blackwood Quotes

Adventures come to the adventurous, and mysterious things fall in the way of those who, with wonder and imagination, are on the watch for them; but the majority of people go past the doors that are half ajar, thinking them closed, and fail to notice the faint stirrings of the great curtain that hangs ever in the form of appearances between them and the world of causes behind. ~ Algernon Blackwood

The Desert settled back to sleep, ~ Algernon Blackwood

I think I might have something for you today, he says, reaches beneath the counter, and his hand comes back with a book, clothbound cover the color of antique ivory, title and author stamped in faded gold and art deco letters. Best Ghost Stories by Algernon Blackwood, and she lifts it carefully off the countertop, picks it up the way someone else might lift a diamond necklace or a sick kitten, and opens the book to the frontispiece and title page, black-and-white photo of the author in a dapper suit, sadkind eyes and his bow tie just a little crooked. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

He gave it the benefit of the doubt; he was Scotch.
("The Wendigo") ~ Algernon Blackwood

The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make use of it! ~ Algernon Blackwood

Not easily may an individual escape the deep slavery of the herd. ~ Algernon Blackwood

The loneliness of the place had entered our very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our voices became a trifle unreal and forced; whispering would have been the fitting mode of communication, I felt, and the human voice, always rather absurd amid the roar of the elements, now carried with it something almost illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in church, or in some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not quite safe, to be overheard. ~ Algernon Blackwood

The bleak splendors of these remote and lonely forests rather overwhelmed him with the sense of his own littleness. That stern quality of the tangled backwoods which can only be described as merciless and terrible, rose out of these far blue woods swimming upon the horizon, and revealed itself. He understood the silent warning. He realized his own utter helplessness. ~ Algernon Blackwood

The Wendigo is simply the Call of the Wild personified, which some natures hear to their own destruction. ~ Algernon Blackwood

For beauty was her accident, and while admirable, was not a determining factor. ~ Algernon Blackwood

Invention has ever imagination and poetry at its heart. ~ Algernon Blackwood

Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil. In the case of the latter, no particular feature need betray them; they may boast an open countenance and an ingenuous smile; and yet a little of their company leaves the unalterable conviction that there is something radically amiss with their being: that they are evil. Willy nilly, they seem to communicate an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts which makes those in their immediate neighbourhood shrink from them as from a thing diseased. ~ Algernon Blackwood

Beliefs are deeper than discoveries. They are eternal." Stahl ~ Algernon Blackwood

The dusk rapidly deepened; the glades grew dark; the crackling of the fire and the wash of little waves along the rocky lake shore were the only sounds audible. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in all that vast world of branches nothing stirred. Any moment, it seemed, the woodland gods, who are to be worshipped in silence and loneliness, might stretch their mighty and terrific outlines among the trees. ~ Algernon Blackwood

[S]he realized quite abruptly that this thing which took him off, which kept him out so many hours day after day, this thing that was against her own little will and instincts - was enormous as the sea. It was no mere prettiness of single Trees, but something massed and mountainous. About her rose the wall of its huge opposition to the sky, its scale gigantic, its power utterly prodigious. What she knew of it hitherto as green and delicate forms waving and rustling in the winds was but, as it were the spray of foam that broke into sight upon the nearer edge of viewless depths far, far away. The trees, indeed, were sentinels set visibly about the limits of a camp that itself remained invisible. The awful hum and murmur of the main body in the distance passed into that still room about her with the firelight and hissing kettle. Out yonder - in the Forest further out - the thing that was ever roaring at the center was dreadfully increasing. ~ Algernon Blackwood

because what one thinks finds expression in words, and what one says, happens. ~ Algernon Blackwood

You know," he went on almost under his breath, "every man who thinks for himself and feels vividly finds he lives in a world of his own, apart, and believes that one day he'll come across, either in a book or in a person, the Priest who shall make it clear to him. ~ Algernon Blackwood

Overhead, between the tips of the highest firs, he saw the first stars peeping, and the sky was a clean, pale amethyst that seemed exactly the colour all these memories clothed themselves with in his mind.
- Secret Worship ~ Algernon Blackwood

The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. Then I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound of my laughter also made me understand his. The strain of physical pressure caused it
this explosion of unnatural laughter in both of us; it was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief; it was a temporary safety-valve. ~ Algernon Blackwood

It was so easy to be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personally witnessed.
("The Wendigo") ~ Algernon Blackwood

I wish I were not quite so lonely - and so poor. And yet I love both my loneliness and my poverty. The former makes me appreciate the companionship of the wind and rain, while the latter preserves my liver and prevents me wasting time in dancing attendance upon women. ~ Algernon Blackwood

When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us. ~ Algernon Blackwood

The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their "note" either of welcome or rejection. ~ Algernon Blackwood

A strong emotion, especially if experienced for the first time, leaves a vivid memory of the scene where it occurred. ~ Algernon Blackwood

My imagination requires a judicious rein; I am afraid to let it loose, for it carries me sometimes into appalling places beyond the stars and beneath the world. ~ Algernon Blackwood

For he felt about the whole affair the touch somewhere of a great Outer Horror - and his scattered powers had not as yet had time to collect themselves into a definite attitude of fighting self-control. ~ Algernon Blackwood

In spite of his exceeding mental perturbation, Simpson struggled hard to detect its nature, and define it, but the ascertaining of an elusive scent, not recognized subconsciously and at once, is a very subtle operation of the mind. And he failed. It was gone before he could properly seize or name it. Approximate description, even, seems to have been difficult, for it was unlike any smell he knew. Acrid rather, not unlike the odor of a lion, he thinks, yet softer and not wholly unpleasing, with something almost sweet in it that reminded him of the scent of decaying garden leaves, earth, and the myriad, nameless perfumes that make up the odor of a big forest. Yet the 'odor of lions' is the phrase with which he usually sums it all up.
("The Wendigo") ~ Algernon Blackwood

Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival ... a survival of a hugely remote period when ... consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in shapes in forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity ... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds ... ~ Algernon Blackwood

across the pale glimmering of sand, ~ Algernon Blackwood

My unworldliness, even at 21, was abnormal. Not only had I never smoked tobacco nor touched alcohol of any description, but I had never yet set foot inside a theatre, or gone to a race course I had never seen, nor held a billiard cue, nor touched a card. ~ Algernon Blackwood

And, with the dark, the Forest came up boldly and pressed against the very walls and windows, peering in upon them, joining hands above the slates and chimneys. ~ Algernon Blackwood

The best match in the world will not light a candle unless the wick be first suitably prepared. ~ Algernon Blackwood

No man can describe to another convincingly wherein lies the magic of the woman who ensnares him. ~ Algernon Blackwood

This feeble attempt at self-deception only makes the truth harder when you're forced to meet it ~ Algernon Blackwood

What is Reality, in the last resort," he asked, "but the thing a man's vision brings to him--to believe? There's no other criterion. The criticism of opposite types of mind is merely a confession of their own limitations." Being ~ Algernon Blackwood

For Felix Henriot, with his admixture of foreign blood, was philosopher as well as vagabond, a strong poetic and religious strain sometimes breaking out through fissures in his complex nature. He had seen much life; had read many books. The passionate desire of youth to solve the world's big riddles had given place to a resignation filled to the brim with wonder. Anything might be true. Nothing surprised him. The most outlandish beliefs, for all he knew, might fringe truth somewhere. He had escaped that cheap cynicism with which disappointed men soothe their vanity when they realise that an intelligible explanation of the universe lies beyond their powers. He no longer expected final answers. ~ Algernon Blackwood

It is, of course, extremely interesting to look back across the years questioningly, wonderingly, objectively, without detachments, though seeing "objectively" does not necessarily imply seeing truthfully. ~ Algernon Blackwood

Ever since Cellini's attack, Blackwood and the others had taken extra care of me. Lambe and Wolff showed me new strategies for chess. Dee tried especially hard not to step on my feet during dance practice. ~ Jessica Cluess

Despair the twin-born of devotion. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

She remembered Fiona saying something once, there was nothing more attractive than a competent man. At the time she'd been a young girl, without true understanding, but now she agreed. ~ Lily Blackwood

No, you don't understand because it isn't happening to you, and no one can understand but me. I don't blame you. You've got your job to do, and your Ph.D. to get, and-oh, yes don't tell me, I know you're in this largely out of love of humanity, but you've got your life to live and we don't happen to belong on the same level. I passed your floor on the way up, nad now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again. So let's just say good-bye here and now. ~ Daniel Keyes

I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Nor had I any illusions about Algernon Charles Swinburne, who often used to stop my perambulator when he met it on Nurses' Walk, at the edge of Wimbledon Common, and pat me on the head and kiss me: he was an inveterate pram-stopper and patter and kisser. ~ Robert Graves

When I worked for Entertainment Tonight I got to emcee Paul McCartney's press conference. ~ Nina Blackwood

Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn. ~ Daniel Keyes

Goodby Miss Kinnian and dr Strauss and evrybody ...

P.S. please tel prof Nemur not to be such a grouch when pepul laff at him and he woud have more frends. Its easy to have frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go.

P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard

Flowers For Algernon ~ Daniel Keyes

I hurried after Sam, calling, "You might wait for us!" The last word, though it was but one syllable, covered two octaves, for my voice broke, as it had been doing lately with alarming frequency.
Sam turned back with a mischievous grin on his face. "Was that your voice cracking, or were you attempting to yodel? ~ Gary L. Blackwood

I am what I am, and I don't apologize for being honest. ~ Rusty Blackwood

Jaenelle peered into the space between the chair arms. "Saetan?" she said in a small, quivery voice. "Saetan, are you all right?"
Using Craft, Saetan sent the top chair back to the blackwood desk. "I'm fine, witch-child." He stuffed his feet into his shoes and gingerly stood up. "That's the most excitement I've had in centuries."
"Really?" He straightened his black tunic-jacket and smoothed back his hair.
"Yes, really." And Guardian or not, a man his age shouldn't have his heart gallop around his rib cage like this. Saetan looked around the study and stifled a groan. ~ Anne Bishop

If you spent all your time being protected, you never got to find out anything new. ~ Sage Blackwood

Liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted. ~ Algernon Sidney

Life is dangerous," said Simon. "Young people need to see the world. ~ Sage Blackwood

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Many things in life are difficult," said Reven, choosing his words carefully. "But to those who persevere, all things are possible. ~ Sage Blackwood

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran . ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

When the hounds of Spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these have gone by with their glories,
What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and somber Delores,
Our Lady of Pain? ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.
Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd. ~ Oscar Wilde

[A]ll popular and well-mixed governments [republics] ... are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld otherwise than by virtue: The worst men always conspiring against them, they must fall, if the best have not power to preserve them ... [and] unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices ... ~ Algernon Sidney

While three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

What is known is a matter of time, and time is a matter of what is not yet known. ~ Sage Blackwood

O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

All the barriers were gone. I had unwound the string she had given me, and found my way out of the labyrinth to where she was waiting. I loved her with more than my body. ~ Daniel Keyes

Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

What level of personal are we talking about?" she mumbled. "I don't mind discussing my periods in graphic detail, but I'm probably going to stay quiet about the jar of fingernail clippings I carry with me at all times. ~ Darcy Coates

Do I want this woman to be another assassin or just want me for my body? Is it wrong if I want both? - Varian ~ Bridget Blackwood

No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest. ~ Algernon Sidney

All the Blackwood women had taken the food that came from the ground and preserved it, and the deeply colored rows of jellies and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit, maroon and amber and dark rich green, stood side by side in our cellar and would stand there forever, a poem by the Blackwood women. ~ Shirley Jackson

who promises you fairness is lying. ~ Bridget Blackwood

The words that come out of your imagination are your own - just be sure they are. ~ Rusty Blackwood

Now that the 90's are over and more time has gone by, the 80's sound fresh again. ~ Nina Blackwood

Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal; Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend. ~ George R R Martin

It occurred to me, then, how nearly real life resembles the first rehearsal of a play. We are all of us stumbling through it, doing our best to say the proper lines and make the proper moves, but not quite comfortable yet in the parts we've been given. Still, like players who trust that -despite all evidence to the contrary- the whole mess will make sense eventually, we keep on going, hoping that somehow things will work out for the best. ~ Gary L. Blackwood