Top 140 Robert E. Howard Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Robert E. Howard

2. “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”

— Robert E. Howard

3. “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

4. “All fled – all done, so lift me on the pyre – The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.”

— Robert E. Howard

5. “I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

— Robert E. Howard

6. “For man’s only weapon is courage that flinches not from the gates of Hell itself, and against such not even the legions of Hell can stand.”

— Robert E. Howard

7. “Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph.”

— Robert E. Howard

8. “When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die.”

— Robert E. Howard

9. “I’m not going out of my way looking for devils; but I wouldn’t step out of my path to let one go by.”

— Robert E. Howard

10. “The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!”

— Robert E. Howard

11. “Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars.”

— Robert E. Howard

12. “It is only the promise of death that makes life worth living.”

— Robert E. Howard

13. “I have accomplished little enough, but such as it is, it is the result of my own efforts.”

— Robert E. Howard

14. “While we may open the books of the past, we may but grant flying glances of the future, through the mist that veils it.”

— Robert E. Howard

15. “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 sandaled feet.”

— Robert E. Howard

16. “What is death but a traversing of eternities and a crossing of cosmic oceans?”

— Robert E. Howard

17. “Youngsters of this generation seem not quite so hazardous except in the way of mechanical speed, bad liquor and venereal diseases.”

— Robert E. Howard

18. “When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. – The Road of Kings.”

— Robert E. Howard

19. “The sea-road is good for wanderers and landless men. There is quenching of thirst on the grey paths of the winds, and the flying clouds to still the sting of lost dreams.”

— Robert E. Howard

20. “Man is better without knowledge of things to come, for what is to be will be, and man can neither avert nor hasten. It is better to go in the dark when the road must pass a lion and there is no other road.”

— Robert E. Howard

21. “Time and times are but cogwheels, unmatched, grinding on oblivious to one another. Occasionally – oh, very rarely! – the cogs fit; the pieces of the plot snap together momentarily and give men faint glimpses beyond the veil of this everyday blindness we call reality.”

— Robert E. Howard

22. “In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.”

— Robert E. Howard

23. “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

24. “How can I wear the harness of toil And sweat at the daily round, While in my soul forever The drums of Pictdom sound?”

— Robert E. Howard

25. “Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future.”

— Robert E. Howard

26. “I had neither expert aid nor advice. I studied no courses in writing; until a year or so ago, I never read a book by anybody advising writers how to write.”

— Robert E. Howard

27. “Man can be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but shadows. The mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream – that is real, that is immortal.”

— Robert E. Howard

28. “He was no defensive fighter; even in the teeth of overwhelming odds he always carried the war to the enemy.”

— Robert E. Howard

29. “Kothian culture and religion had suffered from a subtle admix ture of Shemite and Stygian strains.”

— Robert E. Howard

30. “Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.”

— Robert E. Howard

31. “Their chief is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man’s soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?”

— Robert E. Howard

32. “But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood, restless harbingers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path...”

— Robert E. Howard

33. “The only safe enemy was a headless enemy.”

— Robert E. Howard

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

— Robert E. Howard

35. “Once the sword was drawn there was no turning back; for blood called for blood, and vengeance followed swift on the heels of atrocity.”

— Robert E. Howard

36. “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

— Robert E. Howard

37. “It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.”

— Robert E. Howard

38. “I am a landless man... I come out of the sunset and into the sunrise I go, wherever the Lord doth guide my feet.”

— Robert E. Howard

39. “You can not escape me!” he roared. “Lead me into a trap and I’ll pile the heads of your kinsmen at your feet. Hide from me and I’ll tear apart the mountains to find you! I’ll follow you to hell and beyond hell!”

— Robert E. Howard

40. “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

41. “Nay, alone I am a weak creature, having no strength or might in me; yet in times past hath God made me a great vessel of wrath and a sword of deliverance. And I trust, shall do so again.”

— Robert E. Howard

42. “Some mechanism in my sub-consciousness took the dominant characteristics of various prize-fighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers, and honest workmen I had come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian.”

— Robert E. Howard

43. “I never saw a man fight as Conan fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before they overpowered him the dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they dragged him down, a hundred against one.”

— Robert E. Howard

44. “Man is still an ape in that he forgets what is not ever before his eyes.”

— Robert E. Howard

45. “I think the real reason so many youngsters are clamoring for freedom of some vague sort, is because of unrest and dissatisfaction with present conditions; I don’t believe this machine age gives full satisfaction in a spiritual way, if the term may be allowed.”

— Robert E. Howard

46. “Did you deem yourself strong because you were able to twist the heads off civilised folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong.”

— Robert E. Howard

47. “Well, I like a good hater. But that can wait.”

— Robert E. Howard

48. “Break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.”

— Robert E. Howard

49. “There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage,” answered the Cimmerian.”

— Robert E. Howard

50. “I’ll say one thing about an oil boom; it will teach a kid that Life’s a pretty rotten thing as quick as anything I can think of.”

— Robert E. Howard