Disintegration Is Quite Painless, I Assure You.

I Am Only About Half Alive - A Large Part Of My Strength Is Consumed In Sitting Up Or Walking. My Nervous System Is A Shattered Wreck, And I Am Absolutely Bored & Listless Save When I Come Upon Something Which Peculiarly Interests Me. However - So Many Things Do Interest Me, & Interest Me Intensely, In Science, History, Philosophy, & Literature; That I Have Never Actually Desired To Die, Or Entertained Any Suicidal Designs, As Might Be Expected Of One With So Little Kinship To The Ordinary Features Of Life.

All My Tales Are Based On The Fundamental Premise That Common Human Laws And Interests And Emotions Have No Validity Or Significance In The Vast Cosmos-at-large.

Searchers After Horror Haunt Strange, Far Places.

Religion Struck Me So Vague A Thing At Best, That I Could Perceive No Advantage Of Any One System Over Any Other.

Rome Was So Mighty That It Could Not Fall. It Had To Vanish In A Cloud, Like So Many Of The Mythical Heros Of Antiquity, And To Receive Its Apotheosis Among The Stars Before Men Became Fully Aware That It Had Vanished From The Earth!