Horror Quotes

It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import.

~ Bram Stoker

It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. (The Troll)

~ T.h. White

He talked about terrible meetings in lonely places, of cyclopean ruins in the heart of the Maine woods beneath which vast staircases led down to abysses of nighted secrets, of complex angles that led through invisible walls to other regions of space and time, and of hideous exchanges of personality that permitted explorations in remote and forbidden places, on other worlds, and in different space-time continua.

~ H.p. Lovecraft

With horror he perceived that, by uniting himself as he had with the dead, he had cut himself off from the living. Stripped of all earthly hope, bereft of every consolation, he was rendered as poor as mortal can possiblybe on this side of the grave.

~ Ludwig Tieck

I will come,' the priest answered, 'for I have read in old books of these strange beings which are neither quick nor dead, and which lie ever fresh in their graves, stealing out in the dusk to taste life and blood.

~ Francis Marion Crawford

If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me.

~ Bram Stoker

Oh incomprehensible pederasts, I shall not heap insults upon your great degradation; I shall not be the one to pour scorn on your infundibuliform anus. It is enough that the shameful and almost incurable maladies which besiege you should bring with them their unfailing punishments.

~ Comte De Lautréamont

Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.

~ Saki

Yet, despite all, it is a difficult thing to admit the existence of ghosts in a coldly factual world. One's very instincts rebel at the admission of such maddening possibility. For, once the initial step is made into the supernatural, there is no turning back, no knowing where the strange road leads except that it is quite unknown and quite terrible. (Slaughter House)

~ Richard Matheson

A horror writer is one who is not only willing to look into the darkest of shadows...but to reach into them too.

~ Thomas Scopel

It was as if the city itself was preparing for some impending catastrophe. There had always been talks of ghost and darkness here, even in his boyhood, and now that darkness seems to be seeping from the stones and timbers as much as it was descending from heavens.

~ K.j. Wignall

There is but a gentle stillness inside every cerebral. Tiny waterfalls of blood vessels rushing, becoming lethal.

~ Justin Bienvenue

Maloney looked around my room and nodded like he approved of the extravagance surrounding him: the inch-thick carpet with its diamond designs, the half moon flock of the wallpaper, and the antique furniture, polished to a museum quality shine. The two goons he brought with him flanked the door, equally impressed, I could tell by their dropped jaws and roving, wanton eyes. One of them set a briefcase on the floor beside him. Finally Maloney’s eyes found me, and his expression turned from amazement to shock.“I didn’t expect you to be--”“A Vampire?” I asked, feeling the touch of a smile form on my lips.

~ Craig Jones

Honey, you worry too much. Nothing is going to happen, I mean come on, you’re in the house of Mr. Hausefalle, the guru of home security! You’re probably safer over there than here.- House Trap, ch. 4: A Grave Mistake.

~ Mike Mauthor

Franz said 'Your picture, Viki, suggests that sense of breaking-up we feel in the modern world. Families, nations, classes, other loyalty groups falling apart. Things changing before you get to know them. Death on the installment plan – or decay by jumps. Instantaneous birth. Something out of nothing. Reality replacing science fiction so fast that you can't tell which is which. Constant sense of deja-vu - 'I was here before, but when, how?' Even the possibility that there's no real continuity between events, just inexplicable gaps. And of course every gap – every crack – means a new perching place for horror.

~ Fritz Leiber

The maddened four men followed frantically, for it is better to be in the presence of the awful than only within hearing. (The Black Dog)

~ Stephen Crane

No one, none of us have rights. There is no destiny. We have responsibilities to ourselves and each other. We have responsibilities and the choice whether or not we live up to those responsibilities.

~ Brian Fatah Steele

The place was silent and - aware.

~ P.c. Wren

Noc knew that his girlfriend was better as he got to the door of Kay’s living room. This he could tell by the sound of her screaming at Turney for some infraction on the Son of Time’s part. He opened it to see her soaking wet, cornering Turney by the stereo and holding a ball of Hellfire. Noc burst out laughing at the normalcy of the whole thing.

~ Brian Fatah Steele

It was not a noisy wind but the kind that suggests something very big and thin fresh from the horror of Infinite Space.

~ Jessie Douglas Kerruish

He was terrified by the sublime horror of it, for intensity of feeling, carried to this degree, is sublime. (A Woman's Vengeance)

~ Jules Barbey D'aurevilly

Even the most impassioned devotee of the ghost story would admit that the taste for it is slightly abnormal, a survival, perhaps, from adolescence, a disease of deficiency suffered by those whose lives and imaginations do not react satisfactorily to normal experience and require an extra thrill

~ L.p. Hartley

norris didn't cry, but he was apt to puke on them, the way he had puked on homer gamache that time he had found homer sprawled in a ditch out by homeland cemetary, beaten to death with his own artificial arm.

~ Stephen King

Bullshit. You can paint with a fork, you can kill with a fork. A fork is a tool. Don't let yourself be confined by the definitions of others.

~ Brian Fatah Steele

Still, the car started, so we drove off to the movies. Popcorn happened. Previews, ads, and an annoying kid all went down like clockwork. The picture started and then ended a while later, the world unchanged by its passing.

~ Adam P. Knave

It is this outer reach of existential abnegation – the moment where subjective identity deserts itself and becomes enslaved without consciousness of its subjugated condition – that Mirbeau consistently sought to decry with horror.

~ Emily Apter

Since the fall of Man and the return of Magery and our older ways, most disputes were settled in a civilized manner: sword to the face, mace to the neck, acceptable societal situational handlers

~ Adam P. Knave

No sport, watching horror movie with friends in bright room.Try that alone at night without light with mirror above screen!

~ Toba Beta

Gosnell turned almost no one away from the Women’s Medical Society clinic. This is not meant as a compliment. Repentant Gosnell employee Adrienne Moton testified he would perform abortions on any girls or women with no concern about the age of their babies. The only times she could recall Gosnell refusing to perform an abortion was when somebody’s Social Security number couldn’t be verified. In those cases, Gosnell was worried that the “patient” was an undercover cop.

~ Ann Mcelhinney

On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless!--but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle!

~ Washington Irving

Is it because I'm a girl?Reluctantly, Bill nodded his head.She looked at him for a moment, her lips trembling, and Richie thought she would cry. Instead, she exploded. Well, fuck you! She whirled around to look at the others, and they flinched from her gaze, so hot it was nearly radioactive. Fuck all of you if you think the same thing! she turned back to Bill and began to talk fast, rapping him with words. This is something more than some diddly shit kids game like tag, or guns, or hide and go seek, and you know it, Bill! We're supposed to do this, that's part of it! And you're not going to cut me out just because I'm a girl, do you understand? You better. Or I'm leaving right now!

~ Stephen King

To her eyes, used to diversity, there was a troubling uniformity about them all, something that spoke of isolation, and a dull and thoughtless cruelty.

~ Jack Ketchum

Never forget that time is the most valuable thing we can spend, so don't throw it away!

~ Kerry Oneal

Working with some real dirt seemed fitting for a woman whose hands felt like they would remain forever filthy. She decided to go after the thickets of weeds that seemed determined to ruin her garden, just as she had gone after those dark things crawling from her drain that seemed determined to ruin her life. Summer rains had nourished the thick tangles. Healthy and strong, the weeds twisted along the yard’s edges in dense tuffs. Eden’s hoe whacked away, and at least she felt some satisfaction denying those flower-killers the opportunity to strangle the remaining beauty from her world. She swung the hoe like a pissed off Grim Reaper.

~ Ken Goldman --From Sinkhole

The fly that should be dead and the dog that should be dead in the house that should be dead, and the bride, who would be dead soon.It watched approvingly, appreciating the complexities—and fragilities—of life.

~ Nancy Holder

The sun will always rise, but we may never know

~ Aprl Ray

Friendship and sex were really all she wanted from men these days.

~ Jack Ketchum

A ten-year-old Amanda wandering around the sights and sounds of a carnival. Trying to take it all in as such an event was much larger than the backroads of isolated territory from whence she grew up. She could not imagine this many people assembled in one place. It was made more disturbing by the fact none of them seemed familiar. Short for her age, she wandered unnoticed among the crowds and began to feel the first stirrings of fear. The loud talk, the screaming children, the long lines of procession, along with the myriads of odors created a miasma that she wanted to flee. The laughter and the faux expressions of joy on the faces of people, took on the maroon tones of a nightmare. She could imagine underneath the laughter, were horrid screams about to erupt.

~ Jaime Allison Parker

I am, like you, travelling along a road of absolute uncertainty and chaos. The only truth is that one day, we will all reach the end.

~ M.e. Ellington

They will find whatever button will make you dance, and dance you will, no matter how hideous the tune.

~ Neal Shusterman