Top 35 Robert W. Chambers Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies.”

— Robert W. Chambers

2. “Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa.”

— Robert W. Chambers

3. “I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth – a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.”

— Robert W. Chambers

4. “The mask of self-deception was not longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there was no one to see except myself, and when day broke the mask fell back again of its own accord.”

— Robert W. Chambers

5. “This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask.”

— Robert W. Chambers

6. “The time had come, the people should know the son of Hastur, and the whole world bow to the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa.”

— Robert W. Chambers

7. “Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie’s soft cry and her spirit fled: and even while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now.”

— Robert W. Chambers

8. “I saw the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it, and I saw the towers of Carcosa behind the moon. Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.”

— Robert W. Chambers

9. “Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of Heaven and a stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to – do you?”

— Robert W. Chambers

10. “No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least demented. His mind is a wonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures that you and I would give years of our life to acquire.”

— Robert W. Chambers

11. “Why should certain chords in music make me think of the brown and golden tints of autumn foliage?”

— Robert W. Chambers

12. “Under the tossing ocean the voice of the waters was in my ears – a low, sweet voice, intimate, mysterious. Through singing foam and broad, green, glassy depths, by whispering sandy channels atrail with sea-weed, and on, on, out into the vague, cool sea, I sped, rising to the top, sinking, gliding. Then at last I flung myself out of water, hands raised, and the clamor of the gulls filled my ears.”

— Robert W. Chambers

13. “He’s a trump!” said Clifford, “and if he swears the world is as good and pure as his own heart, I’ll swear he’s right.”

— Robert W. Chambers

14. “The laws prohibiting suicide and providing punishment for any attempt at self-destruction have been repealed. The Government has seen fit to acknowledge the right of man to end an existence which may have become intolerable to him, through physical suffering or mental despair.”

— Robert W. Chambers

15. “Really, old chap,” he said, “I don’t mean to run down a man you like, but for the life of me I can’t see what the deuce you find in common with Mr. Wilde. He’s not well bred, to put it generously; he is hideously deformed; his head is the head of a criminally insane person. You know yourself he’s been in an asylum –.”

— Robert W. Chambers

16. “Harold,′ she would say, ‘do you think I’m a fool? If I place the Crimson Diamond in any safe-deposit vault in New York, somebody will steal it, sooner or later.’ Then she would nibble a sprig of catnip and peer cunningly at me.”

— Robert W. Chambers

17. “Come and see my rose-coloured bath full of death!”

— Robert W. Chambers

18. “Perfection can be overdone; a rift in a lute relieves melodious monotony, and when discords cease to amuse, one can always have the instrument mended or buy a banjo.”

— Robert W. Chambers

19. “It is possible that his curiosity was piqued, for with the exception of a hen-turkey, a boy of nineteen is the most openly curious biped alive. From twenty until death he tries to conceal it.”

— Robert W. Chambers

20. “Like a black shadow a priest stole across the square. Above him the cross on the church glowed like a live cinder, flashing its reflection along the purple-slated roof from the eaves of which a cloud of ash-gray pigeons drifted into the gutter below.”

— Robert W. Chambers

21. “Selby never knew why, but he suddenly began to buy flowers.”

— Robert W. Chambers

22. “This man has been disagreeable to you, and I want to tell you that any time you feel inclined to kick him, why, I will hold the other creature.”

— Robert W. Chambers

23. “All that is fair shall pass away; all that I love, all that I fear for – these shall the doctor take away, lifting them from my memory on the point of a steel blade. What has he to give in return? A hell of vapour, distorting sight; a hell of sound, drowning the soul.”

— Robert W. Chambers

24. “He smiled at her innocence and she worshipped his.”

— Robert W. Chambers

25. “Tessie sat sewing by the window, and every now and then raised her head and looked at me with such innocent compassion that I began to feel ashamed of my irritation and looked about for something to occupy me.”

— Robert W. Chambers

26. “Wings,” she murmured, “oh, yes – to fly away with when he’s tired of his play. Of course it was a man who conceived the idea of wings, otherwise Cupid would have been insupportable.”

— Robert W. Chambers

27. “But he held her close and strong, whispering words of honest love and passion, and when she sobbed – “Not that – not that – I have promised! You must – you must know – I am – not – worthy – ” In the purity of his own heart her words were, to him, meaningless then, meaningless for ever after.”

— Robert W. Chambers

28. “The light on the Palace windows had died away, and the dome of the Pantheon swam aglow above the northern terrace, a fiery Valhalla in the sky; while below in grim array, along the terrace ranged, the marble ranks of queens looked out into the west.”

— Robert W. Chambers

29. “Oh, the sin of writing such words – words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoned diamonds of the Medicis!”

— Robert W. Chambers

30. “As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a shadow, and the shadow is sadness.”

— Robert W. Chambers

31. “Oh, it’s too bad! – really, men are tiresome when they think they know everything!”

— Robert W. Chambers

32. “At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King! The first grey pencillings of dawn would raise a tempest which would shake two hemispheres.”

— Robert W. Chambers

33. “Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent him, had changed him for every other eye but mine. And now I heard his voice, rising, swelling, thundering through the flaring light, and as I fell, the radiance increasing, increasing, poured over me in waves of flame. Then I sank into the depths, and I heard the King in Yellow whispering to my soul: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”

— Robert W. Chambers

34. “Others who habitually do their duty and find a sullen satisfaction in making themselves and everybody else unhappy, might have withstood it.”

— Robert W. Chambers

35. “I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth...”

— Robert W. Chambers