Horror Writers Quotes

The number of mystery and horror writers I've met who are just the sanest and the nicest people... it's crazy. Maybe it's because the writing gets something out of the system?

I tend to look way back for my inspiration: H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe.

I wanted to write a horror story. But in some ways, I have always thought of myself as a kind of ghost-story/horror writer, though most of the time the supernatural never actually appears on stage.

I started out with almost entirely black fans except for a little handful of people in the horror writers' community, and those people really liked horror, you know. They will go to any lengths and read whomever they can find because they like that feeling of being scared.

A lot of my friends are people who do horror films: Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Stephen King.

I love horror movies, obviously; otherwise, I wouldn't make them.

On the other hand, now that I'm not dependent on fiction for my income, I've been writing more short stories despite the fact that there's no real paying market for short horror other than Cemetery Dance.

I think film had a terrible effect on horror fiction particularly in the 80s, with certain writers turning out stuff as slick and cliched as Hollywood movies.

In junior high I read a lot of Stephen King, whose Americana approach to writing was often about "the terror next door" and at the same time I was reading a lot of Clive Barker, who was on the other end of the horror pendulum: insidious and disturbingly psychological. I found it fascinating how these two authors came at horror from two totally different perspectives.

Truth is, I love all the horror guys and girls: Gord Rollo, Shirley Jackson, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell, Dan Simmons, Thomas Ligotti. Each one of them brings something wonderfully different and, because I love the genre, I love those who love the genre, too. And I hope the genre ends up loving me back.

I thought I was going to be a horror story writer. My influences were horror writers, like Rich Matheson, Ray Bradbury and Bram Stoker.

People look down on it, but I love the community of horror. Writers and directors are a tight group of people, and we help and support each other.

I feel like too many horror writers and filmmakers sort of just assume that the default is, 'The horror movie must be all atmosphere first and everything else second.'

I'd like to be remembered not only for my body of work but also for specific novels. Ideally, I want to be remembered in the same way as Stephen King, who defined and exemplified excellence in the horror genre in the late 20th and early 21st century.

I don't feel there's any reason to apologise for having a wicked imagination. I think it's important as a maker of fantasy and of horror.

In the early 2000s, I started selling some short stories to horror markets. I joined the Horror Writers Association.

I attribute the black tones in my films to Stephen King, Tim Burton, Joe Hill and Richard Matheson. However, most of my writing is influenced by mental health. I'm incredibly passionate about shedding light on the stigmas associated with mental illnesses.

Even the contemporary horror authors who have seriously influenced me are a disparate bunch.