The test of the really weird

“The one test of the really weird [in writing] is simply this,” H. P. Lovecraft wrote in the introduction to “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” “whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes or entities on the known universe’s utmost rim.”

I love this definition so much. "Scratching...on the known universe's utmost rim." Perfect.

(Quoted in a 2008 interview with Stephen King; the whole interview is excellent.)