“Conventions are, indeed, all that shield us from the shivering void, though often they do so but poorly and desperately.”
Robert Aickman“Answers are almost always insufficient. They are almost always misleading.”
Robert Aickman“After all, that was a main purpose of science: to make things of all kinds happen sooner than they otherwise would.”
Robert Aickman“The first step towards mastering time is always to make time meaningless”
Robert Aickman“It is strange that people train themselves so carefully to go to waste so prematurely”
Robert Aickman, The Unsettled Dust“Haven't you noticed by this time that everyone's lives are full of things you can't understand? The exceptional thing is the thing you can understand.”
Robert Aickman, Dark Entries“No milk. It is black coffee, pure but strong, that fortifies against the powers of darkness with which the world is filled.”
Robert Aickman, The Wine-Dark Sea“Enchanted islands are hard to understand,' he said. 'I've always thought that. It worried me even as a child. The trouble is that you can never be sure where the enchantment begins and where it ends.”
Robert Aickman, The Wine-Dark Sea“At heart, women are creatures of darkness all the time.”
Robert Aickman, Ringing the Changes, Dark Entries“We are most of us two people, your Highness. There is something lacking in the man who is one thing only, and so, as he believes, at peace with the world and with himself.”
Robert Aickman, Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories