Wes Craven Quotes

I've heard that our greatest cross to carry is ourselves - how gravely we fall short.

I've very critical of myself, and film has been an adjustment for me.

Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold.

I know I've done good things, I know I've done bad things.

It's still difficult for me to watch my work.

I have been my own disciple and my own master. And I have been a good disciple but a bad master.

It's very hard to be honest with yourself when something's just not working.

Over time, it's occurred to me that my protagonists all originate in some aspect of myself that I find myself questioning or feeling uncomfortable about.

I only photograph myself at poignant moments in my life as a check of where I am and how large my thighs are.

Whenever we feel shame, it's a mark of some deep investment or deep internal struggle.

I act the way I act and I'm not proud of it.

I'm sometimes surprised by myself: no matter how much time has passed, I wasn't able to accept my inferiority complex. But I did.

If you asked me today if there's a piece that I would do differently - there's nothing. Regret happens with all my films.

A struggle in my life is to feel like I'm a good person and to feel like I'm a nice person. I try to be and anytime I fall short of that it feels really bad.

Guilt [is] a tool, rather than a weapon against the self.

You actually do confront your dark side, your impulses, or your feelings of sibling rivalry in Cinderella or whatever. You admit that they exist and then you work through them and conquer them and come out living happily ever after having learned something. That's one reason why the fairy tales keep having traction and meaning.

Having got into bed and turned out the light, I quietly burst into tears because I am not a good person. As they came and went for some minutes, I was concerned with the words following 'because' in the previous sentence, rewriting them over and over in my head until they seemed to be as close to the truth as it was possible for me to make them.

I had a long talk with Bruce Springsteen on a rooftop during the Vote for Change tour (in 2004). And it boiled down to this: That guy you used to be, he’s still in the car. He’ll always be in the car. Just don’t let him drive. He might be shouting out directions. But whatever you do, don’t let him get behind the wheel.

You must learn to overcome your very natural and appropriate revulsion for your own work.

It's been 50 years since I was on the roof of my parents' house shooting Hag in a Black Leather Jacket when I didn't even know there was such a thing as editing. I thought you just shot the film and showed it. That's exactly what I did. I'm not that different 50 years later.

By the time you're thirty, your worst enemy is yourself.

Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order.

Feeling a tremendous rakehell, and not liking myself much for it, and feeling rather a good chap for not liking myself much for it, and not liking myself at all for feeling rather a good chap.

I believed, when I entered this convent, I was escaping from myself, but alas, poor me, I brought myself with me!

I'm a hypocrite, of course, and I live with that, but I live.