James Wan Quotes

When you succeed at creating your own world, whether it's in any realm - like Tolkien was able to do - and people are able to enter that world, it's a special thing.

When writing fantastical literature, your biggest problem is getting your audience to believe the fantastical elements of your story.

An editor named Kerrie Hughes wanted me to write a short story that brought my fire-spider Smudge from my goblin books into the present-day world. I came up with libriomancy as a way to make that happen.

I like that the 'Underworld' series created a whole other world that's totally different yet familiar to our own.

The fantasy world, the 'Game of Thrones' world, the forgotten realms worlds - they're the type of worlds I've always wanted to live in. Where vampires, dragons, dwarves and elves are real.

You can't write about fantasy without being ridiculous.

Fantasy is my genre and my home in the writing world. I consider it the biggest writing room in all literature, where there are literally no boundaries at all.

Most of my short stories are fantasy.

No matter what you write, you actually can't help retelling a fairy tale somewhere along the way.

The whole world of 'Game of Thrones' was realized with such detail, with directors and writers who really geeked out and really loved all the little bits of it.

Realism isn't something most people associate with the fantasy genre, yet it's an essential element of great fantasy writing.

I think when writers play with dragons, we are simply doing what fantasy writers have always done.

When you talk about fantasy, the usual problem is that whilst you've got the world of imagination, there are no controlling forces.

'The Lord of the Rings,' published in the mid-1950s, was intended as a prehistory to our own world. It was perceived by Tolkien to be a small but significant episode in a vast alternate mythology constructed entirely out of his own imagination.

A world in which elves exist and magic works offers greater opportunities to digress and explore.

It's hard out here for a fantasy writer, after all; there's all these 'rules' I'm supposed to follow, or the Fantasy Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines.

Tolkien didn't just write 'The Hobbit,' he created a whole world.

'Modelland' has always been a part of my mind and my heart. I'm excited that you'll be able to read about this magical world that's been living in my dreams for so many years.

I think it's fun to play with worlds that you can add a lot of your own imagination to. With 'True Blood,' you're not limited by anything, there are just leaps and bounds of the imagination you can take with these characters.

I've always been a huge fantasy fan. I was always interested in fairy tales and anything with magic or dragons... I was always drawn to those types of stories.

I've always loved fantasy books. Even just growing up, I've always kind of loved magic and fantasy.

If you're creating a whole universe, even if it's a universe squeezed into a solar system, you have to use a little bit of sleight of hand.

We actually say in 'Nightbreed,' 'God is an astronaut, Oz is over the rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters go.' There's a lovely sense in which there's a simple thesis being played out here. These are things you understand as a child out on the play yard.

Fantasy is a demanding genre.

It is a labor of love, but there is a lot of labor, especially when you're trying to build a big, epic world with lots of details and a kind of physics of magic that makes some sense and actually has some rules to it.