Biografie

Universally considered to be the father of modern horror and Sci-Fi (after his short-story "In the Walls of Eryx", co-written with Kenneth J. Sterling and published on January 1936).

His father's insanity was most likely caused by syphilis.

Was known to remain awake for prolonged periods of time, often 36 hours straight, without showing the slightest signs of fatigue or irritability. In one case, in order to meet a deadline, he had to stay awake for 60 hours straight in order to complete a story.

Wrote the short story "Imprisoned With The Pharaohs" as a ghostwriter for Harry Houdini. But on the day he brought it in person, he left the original copy at the train station, but fortunately had a copy saved at home. So somewhere in Providence there was a story titled "Under the Pyramids" by Lovecraft floating around.

Suffered two nervous breakdowns before he was fifteen.

[1921] It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day's end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may. Personally I would not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me, at any rate.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

[epitaph in his gravestone]: I am Providence.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.