100 Quotes About Horror

But I know just what it feels like to have a voice in the back of my head, like a face that I hold inside, face that awakes when I close my eyes, face that watches everytime I lie, face that laughs everytime I fall. (It watches EVERYTHING) ... But the face inside is hearing me, right beneath my skin. Linkin Park

Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre- World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, 'Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.' Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer. Jeff Rice

A lizard brain fired the gun that wounded you, but it was the combination of three brains that orchestrated the elaborate circumstances in which the trigger was pulled. Way back when, the Landlord believed a second brain would endow some of his lower life forms with the capacity for emotional connections. By adding the third brain, he probably planned on having his.. higher forms empowered with the ability to not only think before acting, but to feel regret afterwards when their actions were wrong. But that’s not what happened, is it? . Richard Finney

Someone once asked me what I thought horror fiction did. What its purpose was .. . I replied that when I wrote horror fiction, I tried to take the improbable, the unimaginable, and the impossible, and make it seem not only possible--but inevitable. Michael McDowell

The one test of the really weird (story) is simply this--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 and entities on the known universe's utmost rim. H.P. Lovecraft

The ‘experimental’ writer, then, is simply following the story’s commands to the best of his human ability. The writer is not the story, the story is the story. See? Sometimes this is very hard to accept and sometimes too easy. On the one hand, there’s the writer who can’t face his fate: that the telling of a story has nothing at all to do with him; on the other hand, there’s the one who faces it too well: that the telling of the story has nothing at all to do with him. Thomas Ligotti

Horror fiction seems to spawn more dumbass 'rules' than any other kind of writing, and one of the dumbest is the assumed 'requirement' of a twist ending, going all the way back to H.H. Munro. This story is also the result of a long rumination on how stories are sometimes scuttled or diminished by succumbing to such 'rules'. David J. Schow

These fools who haven't the slightest idea how to live the morals they espouse. These fools who proclaim themselves men of God, yet show not the slightest reverance to His word... Is it any different from a drunkard preaching temperance? A whore preaching modesty? Seth GrahameSmith

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its content. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into peace and safety of a new dark age. H.P. Lovecraft

Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore. James S.A. Corey

The pain, I can assure you, will be exquisite. Clive Barker

If I am horror writer, I should listen to metal???- Why not to dubstep??? Or Deathstep??? Deyth Banger

Where do I go from here? She thought to herself. Truth was, it didn’t matter. She had a new beginning. Austin Cochran

The world outside had its own rules, and those rules were not human. Michel Houellebecq

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, but some, to dream. Shirley Jackson

Reality–there’s nothing but horror in that. A.L. Kennedy

The things which give joy to you may also give you horror! Mehmet Murat Ildan

As for my being a horror writer, I actually think horror is a very conservative genre. The horror comes when you do something wrong--when you challenge religion or society or nature--and then you must pay. I personally consider myself a radical, but I publish conservative material. That's quite a paradox. John Coyne

Through the ages, countless spiritual disciplines have urged us to look within ourselves and seek the truth. Part of that truth resides in a small, dark room -- one we are afraid to enter Matthew J. Pallamary

The study of psychological trauma has repeatedly led into realms of the unthinkable and foundered on fundamental questions of belief. Judith Lewis Herman

When you just have a torch and horror around you... then turn off the torch. Mohammad Ali V

When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us. Algernon Blackwood

For an instant Harry imagined... Just for an instant, before his imagination blew a fuse and called an emergency shut down and told him never to imagine that again. Eliezer Yudkowsky

My goal is that Julie and Brody do not become the other's half. They should be two wholes that become a greater one. That is the only way to overcome evil in the end. Melissa D. Ellis

Seth embraced her tightly. “Don’t write your future so grim. You will not die, Chloe. I will not let you die here in Alexander’s mad kingdom.” He moved her back, reaching down with one hand to gently wipe away her tears. Tamela Miles

Silently we went round and round, And through each hollow mind The memory of dreadful things Rushed like a dreadful wind, And horror stalked before each man, And terror crept behind. Oscar Wilde

Seven, Richie thought. That's the magic number. There has to be seven of us. That's the way it's supposed to be. Stephen King

If one could only discover the unwritten bases of black magic and apply formulae to them, we would find that they were merely another form of science... perhaps less advance, perhaps more. Charles Beaumont

For a moment or two before the spell took effect, he was aware of all the sounds around him: rain splashing on metal and leather, and running down canvas; horses shuffling and snorting; Englishmen singing and Scotsmen playing bagpipes; two Welsh soldiers arguing over the proper interpretation of a Bible passage; the Scottish captain, John Kincaid, entertaining the American savages and teaching them to drink tea (presumably with the idea that once a man had learnt to drink tea, the other habits and qualities that make up a Briton would naturally follow). Then silence. Men and horses began to disappear, few by few at first, and then more quickly — hundreds, thousands of them vanishing from sight. Great gaps appeared among the close-packed soldiers. A little further to the east an entire regiment was gone, leaving a hole the size of Hanover-square. Where, moments before, all had been life, conversation and activity, there was now nothing but the rain and the twilight and the waving stalks of rye. Strange wiped his mouth because he felt sick. . Susanna Clarke

Now that the barn has burned down, I can see the moon. - Persian proverb Samantha Combs

We know–more from the faces immortalized on a handful of photographs than from the words of survivors–that the women and men who experienced that moment in Hiroshima believed they had encountered the beginning of the end of the world. There will never be enough future to prove them wrong. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

But maybe she should turn the other way while I get dressed. Wouldn't want to ruin her for other men. - Dean Jeff Mariotte

Only God is the Giver and Master of Creativity and imagination because they are gifts that can only come from Him Alone! Cheyenne Mitchell

In any story where solutions to mysteries are found, there should always be at least one mystery which remains unsolved. Sean Terrence Best

A memory can taint your dreams Abilash Balan

The misbegotten town of Whistlebrass is hidden away in a forgotten corner of northern Vermont like a guilty secret or a bloody knife buried under the floorboards. Jack Keely

I don't believe in monsters."" Well, Red, I think you might want to start." Pike turned and looked him in the eye. "What do you think those green things were? And what do you think is trying to smash its way in here? A pony? Jack Keely

Tobacco kills a lot of people, but cigarette vending machines are killing that woman by stealing her job. Otsuichi

Don’t waste a minute fretting over the infinite destructive possibilities of The Singularity. Think of all the fun we’re going to have along the way! It will all be one glorious adventure, start to finish! Richard Long

Death lurked everywhere. Death was alive and well. Eric Rickstad

Oh my God, " Mrs. McIntire screamed. She'd dropped to her knees, the dark sand and water soaking into her jeans. "Neely! " Mr. McIntire held his wife while she screeched her daughter's name over and over. "She's going to be fine, sweetie, " he kept saying. I really wanted to believe him. " Is she on the other side?" I paced the shore. I couldn't see anything except a piece of driftwood lying at the water's edge. "I don't see her." Mr. McIntire didn't answer, only pointed across the rolling water. A log had washed up on the shore. It looked like maybe the water had rubbed all the bark off and left a naked, saturated trunk behind. " Tell me where she is." Aggravated, I stared until my eyes blurred with stress. "All I see is a damn log." " Son, " Sheriff Mills said from behind me. "That ain't a log. K.D. Wood

But the thing that .. . that I touched .. . " I cried. "It was furry! It-" I stopped short, taken with a shudder. "I know, " said Herrick. Margery Williams Bianco

Our town carves up and spits out a few seeds each year. We all approach autumn with dread because nobody wants to be a seed. Howard Odentz

At the witching hour, the city was totally silent. Only the wind of portent blew through the gathered council of whispering brick chimneys on the rooftops, delivering the hand that would write upon the wall. Wyatt Michael

The arms, legs, and torso with head were dragged away in sections as the children were captivated by the drama, zealously chewing their candies with sticky teeth. Wyatt Michael

We lie to protect our children, and in lying we expose them to the greatest of harms John Connolly

Cattle... it called us cattle... We're hamburger, you mean. Peter Clines

But sometimes, in tight corners, when your back is against the wall and the world is against you, you have to fight back in unexpected ways. Caroline B. Cooney

Love, really? We're vampires, not teenagers. Lust is for the weak. Ashley Madau

I like stories about supervillains. They teach children that you can accomplish great things even when the whole world is against you. G.D. Falksen

So in that sense, I and my fellow horror writers are absorbing and defusing all your fears and anxieties and insecurities and taking them upon ourselves. We’re sitting in the darkness beyond the flickering warmth of your fire, cackling into our caldrons and spitting out spider webs of words, all the time sucking the sickness from your minds and spewing it out into the night. Stephen King

Writing is a lonely act. When two writers come together to write a horror story it can be crazy. You can't step on a mine and hope it doesn't explode. Ben Oliveira

Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym. Stephen King

From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent. H.P. Lovecraft

We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones. Stephen King

Give me just enough information so that I can lie convincingly. Stephen King

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. Shirley Jackson

Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. Stephen King

Invitation to Dance-It’s a Dance. And sometimes they turn the lights off in this ballroom. But we’ll dance anyway, you and I. Even in the Dark. Especially in the Dark.May I have the pleasure? Stephen King

Swear to me swear to me that if it isn't dead you'll all come back. Stephen King

Vampires, real vampires, didn't nibble on the necks of nubile young virgins. They tore people to pieces and sucked the blood out of the chunks. David Wellington

Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. Edgar Allan Poe

I am your number one fan. Stephen King

There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect, and once in a while man's evil prying calls them just within our range. H.P. Lovecraft

Horror was rooted in sympathy .. . in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst. Joe Hill

I'm giving serious thought into eating yor wife” - Hannibal Lecter Thomas Harris

I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times. Robert Bloch

I don't want to die! "" Then you should never been born. Christopher Pike

The charm of horror only tempts the strong Jean Lorrain

I am a vampire, and that is the truth. Christopher Pike

It's not the tales of Stephen King that I've read, I need protection from the things in my head .. . Jimmy Buffett

Stop now before i kill youa word to the wise from your friend P E N N Y W I S E Stephen King

When you have too much faith in something, it's bound to hurt you. Too much faith in anything will suck you dry. In this way, all the world is a vampire. Poppy Z. Brite

What humans want most of all, is to be right. Even if we're being right about our own doom. If we believe there are monsters around the next corner ready to tear us apart, we would literally prefer to be right about the monsters, than to be shown to be wrong in the eyes of others and made to look foolish. David Wong

Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one's own was beyond the pale. Steve Hockensmith

Good luck is just bad luck with its hair combed. Stephen King

Horror is the removal of masks. Robert Bloch

It's poor judgment', said Grandpa 'to call anything by a name. We don't know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is. Could be lots of things. You can't heave them into categories with labels and say they'll act one way or another. That'd be silly. They're people. People who do things. Yes, that's the way to put it. People who *do* things. Ray Bradbury

We ask only to be reassured About the noises in the cellar And the window that should not have been open T.S. Eliot

You wouldn't think that people would believe that we all got so incredibly beat up–in so many interesting ways–from a bear attack. Especially not when Carmel is sporting a bite mark that is a spot-on match for wounds found at one of the most horrifying crime scenes in recent history. But I never fail to be surprised by what people will believe. Kendare Blake

Melody exploded. "THIS ISN'T LIKE GETTING A FISH TO SEE IF I COULD BE RESPONSIBLE ENOUGH FOR A PUPPY! " She took a deep breath, calmed herself and lowered her voice. She then repeated the statement as if doing so removed the stink of the outburst." I'm well aware of that, " said Lonnie. "And not to poke it with a stick, but you don't see any puppies sniffing around that empty fish bowl, do you? B.M.B. Johnson

Stare at him, " said Ghost. "They won't bite you if you keep staring at them." Steve backed away. "They bite?" Not really. They hiss at you, mostly. The only time geese are ever dangerous is when you happen to be standing on the edge of a cliff. I heard about a guy that almost got killed that way." By geese?" Yeah, there was a whole flock of them coming after him. All hissing and cackling and stabbing at his ankles with their big ol' beaks. He didn't know you had to stare them right in the eye, and he panicked. They backed him right over a fifty-foot cliff." So how come he didn't die?" This guy had wings, " said Ghost. "He flew away. . Poppy Z. Brite

Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise. Summer in its turn soon begins to sweat for something to quench its heat, and the mellowest of autumns will tire of gentility at last, and ache for a quick sharp frost to kill its fruitfulness. Even winter – the hardest season, the most implacable – dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself. . Clive Barker

To be thoroughly conversant with Man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of Despair Edgar Allan Poe

The things a man sees when he ain't got a gun.-- Watson the Caretaker Stephen King

Very well, but remember this... I'll be looking at you when you're laid on the cross and the twelve blows are crashing down on your limbs. When the crowd is finally tired of your screams and wandered home, I will climb up through your blood and sit beside you. I will look deep into your eyes... and drop by drop I will trickle my disgust into them like burning acid until... finally... you perish. Unknown

Err:510 Stephenie Meyer

Broad daylight does not encourage the apprehension of horror. Guy De Maupassant

This is the best year ever because i am reading the chronicles of vladimir tod Heather Brewer

A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong. Edgar Allan Poe

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling .. When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and [yet] with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience. Edmund Burke

On the morning of the exorcism, I stayed home from school. Paul Tremblay

Horror itself is a bit of a bullied genre, the antagonist being literary snobbery and public misconception. And I think good horror tackles our darkest fears, whatever they may be. It takes us into the minds of the victims, explores the threats, disseminates fear, studies how it changes us. It pulls back the curtain on the ugly underbelly of society, tears away the masks the monsters wear out in the world, shows us the potential truth of the human condition. Horror is truth, unflinching and honest. Not everybody wants to see that, but good horror ensures that it's there to be seen. Kealan Patrick Burke