“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.”

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

“How can I wear the harness of toilAnd sweat at the daily round,While in my soul foreverThe drums of Pictdom sound?”

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

“It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known the tread of a human foot.”

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

“Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine—You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine.The throne that I won by blood and sweat , by Crom, I will not sellFor promise of valleys filled with gold, or threat of the Halls of Hell!”

“The Lion banner sways and falls in the horror-haunted gloom;A scarlet Dragon rustles by, borne on winds of doom.In heaps the shining horsemen lie, where the thrusting lances break,And deep in the haunted mountains, the lost, black gods awake.Dead hands grope in the shadows, the stars turn pale with fright,For this is the Dragon's Hour, the triumph of Fear and Night.”

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

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

“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.”