Best 2148 quotes in «horror quotes» category

I never considered myself a horror author until I got published and the powers that be told me that's what I was. I just write and don't concern myself with what category the publishers and bookstores decide to sell my books in.

I never said you had to like it. You have to accept it. No regret. - Claire Harding - Boone Holler

I never saw a dollar bill cry at anyone's funeral.

I never said you had to like it. You have to accept it. No regret." -Clare Harding.

I never said you had to like it. You have to accept it. No regret." - Clare Harding From the current book in writing BUMPKIN by Lani Brown.

Inevitably, his vision verged toward the fantastic; he published a scattering of stories - most included in this volume - which appeared to conform to that genre at least to the degree that the fuller part of his vision could be seen as "mysteries." For Woolrich it all was fantastic; the clock in the tower, hand in the glove, out of control vehicle, errant gunshot which destroyed; whether destructive coincidence was masked in the "naturalistic" or the "incredible" was all pretty much the same to him. RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK, THE BRIDE WORE BLACK, NIGHTMARE are all great swollen dreams, turgid constructions of the night, obsession and grotesque outcome; to turn from these to the "fantastic" was not to turn at all. The work, as is usually the case with a major writer was perfectly formed, perfectly consistent, the vision leached into every area and pulled the book together. "Jane Brown's Body" is a suspense story. THE BRIDE WORE BLACK is science fiction. PHANTOM LADY is a gothic. RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK was a bildungsroman. It does not matter.

Infants never learn to soothe themselves to sleep. They learn, abandoned in seclusion, that no matter the volume of their despondence, no matter the force of their tears, when they are alone and frightened, no-one will ever come to their rescue. Infants do not soothe themselves. They merely surrender. And it is caged in their cribs where the infants learn, in the face of their demons, to remain silent and submitting.

Infames pensamientos convirtiéronse en mis íntimos; los más sombríos, los más infames de todos los pensamientos. La tristeza de mi humor de costumbre se acrecentó hasta hacerme aborrecer a todas las cosas y a la Humanidad entera.

In God's eye I spit, hair upon thy rigid tail sharp fangs glittery wet. Earth be thy sand, the sinful be thy toy, I've been playing forever, in song no longer do I find joy. In Gods eye I fight the bad fight with a goal as sharp as an axe, to ungently place thy hands upon its omnipotent thorax.

In hundreds of years of wish fulfillment, never once to the demon’s bereavement, had a wish gone unable to be yielded. It was love this day, which defeated the curse, and there in Hell there was little worse, than the dark forces of evil gone unwielded.

Iniquity shall be increased above that which now thou see, or that thou hast heard long ago.

In March of 1915, all three of Lord and Lady Chetwynd-Pitt's sons'd been gassed, blown up or machine-gunned in the very same week at the battle of Neuve-Chapelle. All three. Imagine that: On Monday, you've got three sons, by Friday you've got none. Lady Albertina had just, y'know, caved in. Physically, mentally, spiritually, brutally.

Innards came out crossed and complex, like a tumble of plus and minus signs--the equation of human life.

In one picture, the pool was half hidden by a fringe of mace- weeds, and the dead willow was leaning across it at a prone, despondent angle, as if mysteriously arrested in its fall towards the stagnant waters. Beyond, the alders seemed to strain away from the pool, exposing their knotted roots as if in eternal effort. In the other drawing, the pool formed the main portion of the foreground, with the skeleton tree looming drearily at one side. At the water's farther end, the cat-tails seemed to wave and whisper among themselves in a dying wind; and the steeply barring slope of pine at the meadow's terminus was indicated as a wall of gloomy green that closed in the picture, leaving only a pale of autumnal sky at the top. ("Genius Loci")

I noticed the dudes in the ambulance were staying put; I hoped they were calling for backup, or maybe somebody who could do an exorcism, or maybe my pal Stephen King, because if anybody on earth could figure a way out of this mess, it'd be Uncle Stevie.

I notice young girls picking flowers off her gravestone; their clean hearts are soapstone. Their small sorrows are for children alone. And all of their stories will never be told.

İnsanın en büyük iki günahının kibir ve nefret olduğu söylenir.Öyle mi sahiden?Bana göre bunlar en büyük iki erdem.Kibir ve nefretten vazgeçmek,dünyanın iyiliği için çaba göstermek anlamına gelir.Oysa onları beslemek daha asil bir davranıştır; siz dünyanın iyiliği için değil,dünya sizin iyiliğiniz için çabalayacak demektir.Muhteşem bir maceradayım. Harold Emery Lauder

Insanity is the only real escape from the banality of our lives. - Clara Bayliss

Inside, there was a bed, and upon the bed there was a woman. More beautiful was she even than the damask rose while her scent, drifting through the open window, was that of the night dew. Her hair was silken as the raven's wing. Quite naked, she lay, so still upon the bed, her eyes closed in reverie. The young man looked first upon her breasts, where her hand rested. And upon each breast, there was a rosebud nipple. Upon each nipple there was a tip most tender. Upon each tip there was a milky drop. Chin lifted, lips parted, she milked her maiden breast. 'What I would give to suckle at that teat,' thought he. from 'Against Faithlessness' in Cautionary Tales

In the course of my life I have had pre-pubescent ballerinas; emaciated duchesses, dolorous and forever tired, melomaniac and morphine-sodden; bankers' wives with eyes hollower than those of suburban streetwalkers; music-hall chorus girls who tip creosote into their Roederer when getting drunk... I have even had the awkward androgynes, the unsexed dishes of the day of the *tables d'hote* of Montmartre. Like any vulgar follower of fashion, like any member of the herd, I have made love to bony and improbably slender little girls, frightened and macabre, spiced with carbolic and peppered with chlorotic make-up. Like an imbecile, I have believed in the mouths of prey and sacrificial victims. Like a simpleton, I have believed in the large lewd eyes of a ragged heap of sickly little creatures: alcoholic and cynical shop girls and whores. The profundity of their eyes and the mystery of their mouths... the jewellers of some and the manicurists of others furnish them with *eaux de toilette*, with soaps and rouges. And Fanny the etheromaniac, rising every morning for a measured dose of cola and coca, does not put ether only on her handkerchief. It is all fakery and self-advertisement - *truquage and battage*, as their vile argot has it. Their phosphorescent rottenness, their emaciated fervour, their Lesbian blight, their shop-sign vices set up to arouse their clients, to excite the perversity of young and old men alike in the sickness of perverse tastes! All of it can sparkle and catch fire only at the hour when the gas is lit in the corridors of the music-halls and the crude nickel-plated decor of the bars. Beneath the cerise three-ply collars of the night-prowlers, as beneath the bulging silks of the cyclist, the whole seductive display of passionate pallor, of knowing depravity, of exhausted and sensual anaemia - all the charm of spicy flowers celebrated in the writings of Paul Bourget and Maurice Barres - is nothing but a role carefully learned and rehearsed a hundred times over. It is a chapter of the MANCHON DE FRANCINE read over and over again, swotted up and acted out by ingenious barnstormers, fully conscious of the squalid salacity of the male of the species, and knowledgeable in the means of starting up the broken-down engines of their customers. To think that I also have loved these maleficent and sick little beasts, these fake Primaveras, these discounted Jocondes, the whole hundred-franc stock-in-trade of Leonardos and Botticellis from the workshops of painters and the drinking-dens of aesthetes, these flowers mounted on a brass thread in Montparnasse and Levallois-Perret! And the odious and tiresome travesty - the corsetted torso slapped on top of heron's legs, painful to behold, the ugly features primed by boulevard boxes, the fake Dresden of Nina Grandiere retouched from a medicine bottle, complaining and spectral at the same time - of Mademoiselle Guilbert and her long black gloves!... Have I now had enough of the horror of this nightmare! How have I been able to tolerate it for so long? The fact is that I was then ignorant even of the nature of my sickness. It was latent in me, like a fire smouldering beneath the ashes. I have cherished it since... perhaps since early childhood, for it must always have been in me, although I did not know it!

In the end, though, it's all about giving back the teeth that the current 'sweetie-vamp' craze has, by and large, stolen from the bloodsuckers. It's about making them scary again.

In the grave the chambers of souls are like the womb of a woman: For like as a woman that travails make haste to escape the necessity of the travail: even so do these places haste to deliver those things that are committed unto them.

In the horrors of war, please bring me peace.

In the illusion of delusion, between madness and lawlessness I exist. I dream about dreams, about illusions and disillusions and cold and madness and you…

In the illusion of delusion, between madness and lawlessness I exist. I dream about dreams, about illusions and disillusions and cold and madness and you… the source. Known and unknown and the eternity and the darkness flittering with my soul and on the outside of memories; cages and cages of feelings caught in a single line of dreams shackled to a thought

In the real world, babysitting is a groovy way for young people to learn responsibility (and earn a little pocket money). In the Terrorverse, it's a plot device used to kill teenagers.

In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou know not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

I often stood and stared into those tunnels and thought about what happened there; how I was separated from it only by time." - The Procession

I once made a solemn vow that I could not keep... I am from this world. Even with all its failures and suffering it is still worthy of my best efforts... and wishing it was otherwise does not make it so." Eiij'lam told the king.

In the year 2052, it's not love but hate that unites the world.

In this arid wilderness of steel and stone I raise up my voice that you may hear. To the East and to the West I beckon. To the North and to the South I show a sign proclaiming: Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong! Compton

Io ero già tutto preso dalla porta e dalla brutta sensazione che mi aveva creato fin dal principio. Era una porta ad arco di fattura toscana, laccata di bianco, elegante e del tutto in sintonia con il colore smorto delle pareti esterne. Però l'idea generale conferiva la sensazione di una patina calata sulla casa in una giornata bigia di pioggia e mai più scivolata via. Il particolare che stonava di più con l'immagine tutto sommato omogenea del resto erano le due finestrelle di vetro smerigliato. Due quarti di cerchio, disposti l'uno accanto all'altro all'interno del semicerchio superiore della porta, con gli angoli a novanta gradi rivolti verso l'esterno. Sembravano i due occhi opachi di un catatonico.

I peered hard, trying to make out what was perched, as the realization of the most Gothic and brutal of horrors bound right through my body in an instant once I realized what we were seeing! We were looking at the dead bodies of Ned and Amanda! Hoisted as in byzantine ritual, his eyes shut and body motionless, her body naked and unmolested, her head missing in the night air as a group surrounded them on the ground below! “Oh god!” I said, my voice and body quivering. “My God! They’ve got bodies hanging up in the air!” Harold said as he tried to reconcile what he was looking at before flooring the vehicle and barreling toward the on ramp! Jess stood beside Nathaniel Williams, at the foot of the bodies, laughing wildly! The throws and pitch of her voice penetrating the vehicle, as we passed, as in a chant mocking of the horror that we were witnessing in modern times! Her hair was blowing wildly in the wind and her eyes menaced the shear vice of evil as Nathaniel looked on with curious intent in our charging direction! “They should not get far I would suppose, but we shall see. I do think my better arrangements of decency hope they escape, but then again I’m not decent!” he extolled as he watched the vehicle move out of sight and onto the interstate with Jess laughing and shouting words of irreverence next to him.

I question all things. As I stand before the festering and varnished facades of your haughtiest moral dogmas, I write thereon in letters of blazing scorn: Lo and behold; all this is fraud! Compton

I pass the torch to the monster, the beast, the phantasm, #RedButtons who lurks behind the eyes of the pedophile priest. You just continue raping the children. Softening their flesh with fear. I'll stop by once in a while. See if, I don't know, they are tired of "IT" and want to come with me, where they'll make a delicious addition to my carpet of bones.

I put it to the great man [Hitchcock], the key to fictitious terror is partition or containment: so long as the Bates Motel is sealed off from our world, we want to peer in, like at a scorpion enclosure. But a film that shows the world is a Bates Motel, well, that's... the stuff of Buchloe, dystopia, depression. We'll dip our toes in a predatory, amoral, godless unive3rse, but only our toes.

I raise up in stern invasion the standard of the strong! Compton

I recalled something I’d read a long time ago about Satan. When he appeared, it wouldn’t be as a demon but as an ordinary-looking guy with a convincing message of peace.

I remembered what it was like to die-the pain, the fear, the doubt, and the unknown. Somehow I had cheated death once. Now I was about to try again.

I request reason for your golden rule and ask the why and wherefore of your commandments. Compton

Irwin was difficult to wake; the poor man was totally wiped out. He collapsed in one of the soft office chairs the moment Smith let him, sliding back into slumber. After he was settled, I sat at my desk and reviewed Smith’s…no, Charles’s notes, shuffling the paper irritably to bring the print into focus. Someday, I’d come up with a melody that fixed my sight problems. And tomorrow, I thought, mocking myself, I’ll find a way to sing away fleas and retire rich.

I see sarcastic and obscene visions of angels and demons flirting with the souls of men creating horror and deities in surreal worlds, and writing plays for us to perform; while I am being dragged into the darkness. I want to know who is doing all this… I fell back into that lethargic dream of bottomless pits and deserts hanging from the skies.

I really, really need some help and advice. I'm scared... I'm scared of my own home, of my own daughter!

I said, "I want to wear something funny and cool. Marjorie, could I wear your sparkly baseball hat?" The three of us looked at Marjorie. Now I remember thinking that her answer could change everything back to the way it was; Dad could find a job and stop praying all the time and Mom could be happy and call Marjorie shellfish again and show us funny videos she found on YouTube, and we all could eat more than just spaghetti at dinner and, most important, Marjorie could be normal again. Everything would be okay if Marjorie would only say yes to me wearing the sparkly sequined baseball hat, the one she'd made in art class a few years ago. The longer we watched Marjorie and waited for her response, the more the temperature in the room dropped and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. She stopped twisting her spaghetti around her fingers. She opened her mouth, and vomit slowly oozed out onto her spaghetti plate. Dad: "Jesus!" Mom: "Honey, are you okay?" She jumped out of her seat and went over to Marjorie, stood behind her, and held her hair up. Marjorie didn't react to either parent, and she didn't make any sounds. She wasn't retching or convulsing involuntarily like one normally does when throwing up. It just poured out of her as though her mouth was an opened faucet. The vomit was as green as spring grass, and the masticated pasta looked weirdly dry, with a consistency of mashed-up dog food. She watched Dad the whole time as the vomit filled her plate, some of it slopping over the edges and onto the table. When she finished she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "No, Merry. You can't wear my hat." She didn't sound like herself. Her voice was lower, adult, and growly. "You might get something on it. I don't want you to mess it up." She laughed. Dad: "Marjorie..." Marjorie coughed and vomited more onto her too-full plate. "You can't wear the hat because you're going to die someday." She found a new voice, this one treacly baby-talk. "I don't want dead things wearing my very special hat.

I shall challenge all authority. Question all who claim dominion over me. I am not a thoughtless being but a man with his own beliefs.

I shook with cold and fear, without being able to answer. After a lapse of some moments, I was again called. I made an effort to speak, and then felt the bandage which wrapped me from head to foot. It was my shroud. At last, I managed feebly to articulate, 'Who calls?' 'Tis I' said a voice. 'Who art thou?' 'I! I! I!' was the answer; and the voice grew weaker, as if it was lost in the distance; or as if it was but the icy rustle of the trees. A third time my name sounded on my ears; but now it seemed to run from tree to tree, as if it whistled in each dead branch; so that the entire cemetery repeated it with a dull sound. Then I heard a noise of wings, as if my name, pronounced in the silence, had suddenly awakened a troop of nightbirds. My hands, as if by some mysterious power, sought my face. In silence I undid the shroud which bound me, and tried to see. It seemed as if I had awakened from a long sleep. I was cold. I then recalled the dread fear which oppressed me, and the mournful images by which I was surrounded. The trees had no longer any leaves upon them, and seemed to stretch forth their bare branches like huge spectres! A single ray of moonlight which shone forth, showed me a long row of tombs, forming an horizon around me, and seeming like the steps which might lead to Heaven. All the vague voices of the night, which seemed to preside at my awakening, were full of terror. ("The Dead Man's Story")

I shut up. I don't fight, I don't scream. Shame rides alongside my terror. But somewhere deep, deep inside, I hear Mom tell me to trust my gut. My gut tells me I am blind and I am lost, and if I fought for freedom now, it would end in my death. I listen to my gut. Because I want to live.

Is it possible for one to enter sleep and wander while never waking? And if so, for how long can one survive this way?

I stare at my freakish eyeball, gaze into the distorted pupil until it expands and fills the mirror, fills my brain and I’m rushing through vacuum. Wide awake and so far at such speed I flatten into a subatomic contrail. That grand cosmic maw, that eater of galaxies, possesses sufficient gravitational force to rend the fabric of space and time, to obliterate reality, and in I go, bursting into trillions of minute particles, quadrillions of whining fleas, consumed. Nanoseconds later, I understand everything there is to understand. Reduced to my “essential saltes” as it were, I’m the prime mover seed that gets sown after the heat death of the universe when the Ouroboros swallows itself and the cycle begins anew with a big bang.

I stared into the man's lifeless eyes. His face was blue, but it could've been from the cold. His body was bloated, but he could've just been fat. None of this explained the crows lining up on the tree branch though. --The Body By the Tree