Susan Hill Quotes

Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.

There often is a dark secret in books... There is often a gathering sense of dread; there's a gap sometimes in the text from which all kinds of monsters can emerge.

I loved ghost stories. I love horror stories. I love all of that stuff, but I really yearn for something to actually frighten me. It's more of a yearning for that than something that has to necessarily be cerebral or sophisticated. Good storytelling and something that actually frightens you.

A great thriller, to me, is more about creating a sense of unease: a queasiness that comes with knowing something is not quite right.

We human beings get nervous if we don't know what's going on. It's the rule for creating scary stories: the unknown is always more frightening than the known.

The writer's goal is to try to make it frightening without describing it too much, and yet not making it so grey that you don't know what's going on... Your imagination can imagine all sorts of really horrible things, and if you're able to prolong that feeling, then you've succeeded.

I think suspense is a big thing.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Horror of any kind is dependent on a certain amount of insecurity and paranoia from the audience. And it feeds on that and works on that.

True horror, I think, deals with dread and menace and gets under your skin.

I think horror should never be safe, whether it's violent or non violent.

I have always loved reading a little creep-factor and a lot of suspense.

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

Horror movies can be very interesting because they can deal with intangible subjects that are full of emotion.

You kind of invite a little spooky, creepy vibe into your whole experience of making a movie.

I think most of my films all have a certain tone or intensity in them. They are tense, and you kind of anticipate some kind of catastrophe, but you're not quite sure.

I don't think we should tell them what we're going to do in advance. Let them think. Worry. Wonder. Uncertainty is the most chilling thing of all.

I think if you looked at the kind of ebb and flow of supernatural fiction and horror fiction, it does seem to be more popular in times when we're hammered over the head daily with threats from all angles, very real threats.

There's always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down.

I've always had this in a kind of worst-case dark imagination. I want to know what the dark form in the window is. I want to know what the noise under the staircase is.

Even though I don't necessarily believe in everything that's supernatural, I like being scared and I like things that are suspenseful.

Ironically, I wouldn't say I'm a massive horror fan. I love thrillers.

A good writer can set a thriller anywhere and make it convincing: the trick is to evoke the setting in such a way that it highlights the crime or unsettles the reader.

Look at the world of both film and indie games, and you'll find a startling similarity between the two when it comes to creating the perfect horror story. The tricks storytellers pull to make your blood run cold never change; a creaking floorboard, the eerie feeling of being watched, wandering into a world filled with unspeakable terror.

The scariest part to any story is the sliver of truth you hide in the horror. Sometimes its not about the axe wielding murder, but the fact that he's lurking somewhere in your basement. Sure, you keep telling yourself that you'll replace the burnt out light every week.