Fantasy Horror Quotes & Sayings

There are ... otherwise quite decent people who are so dull of nature that they believe that they must attribute the swift flight of fancy to some illness of the psyche, and thus it happens that this or that writer is said to create not other than while imbibing intoxicating drink or that his fantasies are the result of overexcited nerves and resulting fever. But who can fail to know that, while a state of psychical excitement caused by the one or other stimulant may indeed generate some lucky and brilliant ideas, it can never produce a well-founded, substantial work of art that requires the utmost presence of mind. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

Admitting defeat? How un-huntress like of you. — Yvonne Nicolas

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

And then the roar. That roar. The roar of the end of all hope. — David Annandale

Stop wiggling - you'll move when I move you. — Heather McVea

I've always found it easy and natural and, more importantly, necessary to articulate thoughts and feelings, and fierce emotions, through the written word. Fantasy and horror came to me when I was very young. — Kim Elizabeth

There was blood on the hair of his chinny chin chin. — Fawn Bonning

To be intensely educated about the horror of sin and then to be conquered by it. I tell myself that it must be prohibition that kindles fantasy — Umberto Eco

Is it ... can we ... is it safe?"
Tub checked the lot but he seemed unconcerned.
"Coach Lawrence nabbed him for practice. We live to fight another day, soldier."
"No ... I mean, the thing ... is it ... ?"
Tub frowned.
"The thing. Hmmm. Can you be more specific?
I clutched at the bumper and raised myself to unsteady feet. I patted the truck bed, taking solace in the cake of dust. It was real; I was not caught in a nightmare. I smeared the dust with my fingers and smelled it.
"If you lick that, we're no longer friends," Tub said. — Guillermo Del Toro

It's a terrible thing, isn't it? To be dragged under? — Guillermo Del Toro

It was a godless sound; one of those low-keyed, insidious outrages of Nature which are not meant to be. To call it a dull wail, a doom-dragged whine, or a hopeless howl of chorused anguish and stricken flesh without mind would be to miss its most quintessential loathsomeness and soul-sickening overtones. — H.P. Lovecraft

Thomas Randall and Christopher Golden not only are inventive writers but write in a sense to grab your attention cover to cover! I absolutely advise you to read,"The Waking" series. You'll love it if you are into the movie,"The- Grudge". I'm currently working on reading the second book of the trilogy. — Thomas Randall

His eyes burned with intensity. I wondered briefly if someone
he knew was being held in that cold room that smelled like death. Someone he loved? — Jaye Wells

Wells is teaching us to think. Burroughs and his lesser imitators are teaching us not to think. Of course, Burroughs is teaching us to wonder. The sense of wonder is in essence a religious state, blanketing out criticism. Wells was always a critic, even in his most wondrous and romantic tales.

And there, I believe, the two poles of modern fantasy stand defined. At one pole wait Wells and his honorable predecessors such as Swift; at the other, Burroughs and the commercial producers, such as Otis Adelbart Kline, and the weirdies, and horror merchants such as H.P. Lovecraft, and so all the way past Tolkien to today's non-stop fantasy worlders. Mary Shelley stands somewhere at the equator of this metaphor. — Brian W. Aldiss

[ ... ]i'm not a leftist trying to smuggle in my evil message by the nefarious means of fantasy novels. I'm a science fiction and fantasy geek. I love this stuff. And when I write my novels, I'm not writing them to make political points. I'm writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I'm creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have [ ... ] I'm trying to say I've invented this world that I think is really cool and I have these really big stories to tell in it and one of the ways that I find to make that interesting is to think about it politically. If you want to do that too, that's fantastic. But if not, isn't this a cool monster? — China Mieville

Those monsters in your closets and under your beds? They are just as real as us. The difference is that we fear what we don't understand, while they understand exactly, what we fear. — Rob Shepherd

Nil Sine Magno Labore
("Nothing without great effort")
Motto of Brooklyn College — Tony-Paul De Vissage

I love horror, fantasy and sci-fi. Those are my genres of love and devotion. — Bryan Fuller

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. — Clive Barker

As Eldon continued to look around, he was anxious to realize people were gathering in the square. They paused to glower in disgust at Tobias, and a few bold children riding past on bicycles slowed down to stick out their tongues. Eldon heard Tobias mutter something under his breath, and as the children rode away, they lost control of their bikes and crashed into each other.

"Toby!"

"Are you rested now?" said Tobias, ignoring Eldon's shock. — Ash Gray

When my mother died, I thought I'd drown in sorrow. But my grandmother said something very wise, and I've always held it close to my heart. She said that not even the sea is infinite, and neither is grief. — T. Frohock

I keep waiting for someone to cast me as the angel or the witch or the immortal of some kind because so much of the reading I do for my own pleasure is fantasy, horror, or sci-fi. — Lorraine Toussaint

Like something straight out of a B-grade horror film, a single arm shot up from the dirt, reaching and grabbing as it clawed its way forth from its earthen prison. Ash and Trent watched the monster struggle in silence for at least ten minutes, occasionally exchanging glances. Finally, after all the writhing, the zombie emerged. It stumbled out of its grave covered in dirt and gave an annoyed-sounding groan. — Kait Ballenger

Metal guys are huge nerds. A good percentage of them are either horror or sci-fi or comic book or fantasy nerds. — Scott Ian

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. — Rick Chiantaretto

But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical. — Octavia Butler

Those secrets residing in their hearts and minds held magnificent Energy. Humans were too inept to see it as anything but evil. — Auden Johnson

Quite often, intent on conveying how things can go wrong for a culture (science fiction) or an individual (horror) or all of magical creation (fantasy), works of fantastika often preclude comedy, because humor gets in the way of messages of doom or struggle. — Paul Di Filippo

An admirable line of Pablo Neruda's, "My creatures are born of a long denial," seems to me the best definition of writing as a kind of exorcism, casting off invading creatures by projecting them into universal existence, keeping them on the other side of the bridge ... It may be exaggerating to say that all completely successful short stories, especially fantastic stories, are products of neurosis, nightmares or hallucination neutralized through objectification and translated to a medium outside the neurotic terrain. This polarization can be found in any memorable short story, as if the author, wanting to rid himself of his creature as soon and as absolutely as possible, exorcises it the only way he can: by writing it. — Julio Cortazar

She holds you like a whore in the night, but she'll take your soul and not think twice. — Micheal Rivers

Evan had heard it all before. A paradise underground, made for things like the worm in front of him. A place where Evan would forget he had ever been human, forget he had a mother, maybe even forget his own name. This thing did not remember its own, Evan was sure of it. — Mary G. Thompson

You'll regret that, Bourkan. — T.S. Pettibone

If you go chasing your freedom your fate will only follow you there and force you back. — Christina Henry

What you seem to forget is that I'm not one of the embodiments of evil. I'm one of the embodiments of fear. That means I know what makes evil quake in the light of the sun. — Emily Kirby

Shawn slowly climbed the old wooden stairs, listening to the low creak that sounded from his footsteps. He hoped the wood wouldn't collapse beneath him. But the stairs held strong and a moment later he joined his friend in the kitchen of the old house, a wave of suffocating humidity washing over them as they stepped deeper into its secrets. — Joe DeRouen

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

Come now, I was not about to let that thing eat you. — Stacy Buck

My mother was the bringer of storms. The dark and the light. Death and rebirth. She was as dangerous as she was beautiful as she rode the lightning. Once a potent force of nature she had the nerve to look down on us from those lofty heights. — Scarlett Amaris

I had a recurring fantasy in which I took (Rudy Giuliani) out during a press conference (it was nonlethal, just something that put him out of commission for a year or so), saving America from the horror of a President Giuliani. If that sounds like I had some trouble being 'objective,' I did. — Michael Hastings

Supernatural horror was one of the ways we found that would allow us to live with our double selves. By its employ, we discovered how to take all the things that victimize us in our natural lives and turn them into the very stuff of demonic delight in our fantasy lives. In story and song, we could entertain ourselves with the worst we could think of, overwriting real pains with ones that were unreal and harmless to our species. — Thomas Ligotti

If you talk about genres - I don't care if you're talking about war, Westerns, science fiction, horror, fantasy, humor, romance - anything you can find, strolling the aisles of a Borders or a Barnes & Noble, I can bring you many comic books representing each genre. — Michael Uslan

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 dragons live in the casino?
Tee's eyes widened and alarm coursed through her.
My God, it's like the Rocky Horror Picture Show. — Susannah Scott

Leaning forward in the chair, Harley squeezed out a controlled fart, so no one could hear it. This damn reception area was like a echo chamber. If he weren't careful, it could reverberate around the hall like a shotgun blast. — Alan Kinross

Magic is a naughty beast. — Rob E. Boley

The fantastic postulates that there are forces in the outside world, and in our own natures, which we can neither know nor control, and these forces may even constitute the essence of our existence, beneath the comforting rational surface. The fantastic is, moreover, a product of human imagination, perhaps even an excess of imagination. It arises when laws thought to be absolute are transcended, in the borderland between life and death, the animate and the inanimate, the self and the world; it arises when the real turns into the unreal, and the solid presence into vision, dream or hallucination. The fantastic is the unexpected occurrence, the startling novelty which goes contrary to all our expectations of what is possible. The ego multiplies and splits, time and space are distorted. — Franz Rottensteiner

In any event, whether a supernatural tale remains altogether fantastic or eventually modulates to the uncanny or the marvelous, the reader is faced with disconcerting ontological and perceptual problems.
Indeed, the disorienting effect of the supernatural encounter in fiction seems to reflect some deeper disorientations in the culture at large. — Howard Kerr

Every night when I watch you sleep, I breathe you in. Every time I make you smile, my heart beats a tad bit faster. You are the blood flowing through my veins. If I had to go back to the life I had before, I would go freaking insane. — Shannon Eckrich

As for genre, my adult books are usually filed under science fiction / fantasy, although some stores put them into romance, and few have stuck them into horror. I consider all my books a mix of steampunk and urban fantasy. — Gail Carriger

I looked at Vicki. My beautiful Vicki. My dream. My love. My life. — Derek Ailes

Rap un zeal' Demon within. I might as well put up a giant 'Come and Get Eaten' sign for the good those warning runes do. — Sabrina Zbasnik

After watching too many scary movies it was hard not to have an overactive imagination, along with an inherent distrust of seemingly benevolent (and sometimes inanimate) things, like lawn gnomes. — Kat Stiles

It is nayat one fraigen, lita. It has naya honed scales to rip yon wide. — Fawn Bonning

All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with, except in India, where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, top-scum stuff that people call 'civilization. — Rudyard Kipling

I'm mostly a novelist these days, but I have written short stories in Fantasy, Science Fiction and horror. — Sarah Zettel

Oh dear ... then they must already be on the march! We have to hurry and get to the Hamblings ... before nightfall!' - Phillip Celeste from Curse of Ancient Shadows — Rod Tyson

The deeds of the light do just as much damage as the deeds of the dark.
From Lucifer's Ladder (God of the Fallen: Book One) — W.D. Frank

Horror, for me, has to involve some sort of fantasy. Horror is something that is in your dreams or your nightmares. — Cassandra Peterson

It was Halloween eve,
And I was yearning alone waiting for my soul mate Ethan,
He was expected by now for the celebrations in our bedroom,
We planned for this, many months back, and now I was getting restless,
My dick was erect and making a pole in my boxer - tough to handle 9 inches long of yearning all alone. — Delicious David

I'm not your boyfriend!" I snapped, trying to gently move her hands away from my body.
"How can you say that?" Sara asked in horror.
"It's shockingly effortless," I replied. "My vocal chords vibrate, and my mouth and tongue articulate. I can even do it without thinking." I had to remind myself to stay calm, and sarcasm was the best way to do that.
"When are you going to give me a key to your house so I don't have to knock like some guest?" Sara asked, coming at me again.
I backed away. "How about never? Is never good for you?"
Sara, undeterred, said, "You're the reason I go to therapy on Fridays."
"The plot thickens!" Gabby exclaimed for comedic relief. — Laura Kreitzer

Behind every legendary monster, there is an unknown tragedy. — Julie Deshtor

Life is replete with comedy, drama, horror, suspense, tragedy, romance, mystery, fantasy and a good dose of fiction. While at times the plot may seem to be lacking, the special effects alone are well worth the price of admission. — Derek R. Audette

She was a predator - a creature of the night who rejoiced in the thrill of the hunt. — Alan Kinross

Pulling back, like a savage carnivore at its prey, it tore a large chunk of meat rendering his left arm useless...regardless he did not require it for long. — Stacy Buck

Readers love fantasy, but we need horror. Smart horror. Truthful horror. Horror that helps us make sense of a cruelly senseless world. — Brian K. Vaughan

The wind seems to be blowing through the gaps in the conversation like the rushing of empty space. — Michael Cisco

At that instant the hag's noisy breathing stopped and with it all other sound. Her eyes opened, showing only whites - milky ovals infinitely eerie in the dark root-tangle of her sharp features and stringy hair. The gray tip of her tongue traveled like a large maggot around her lips. — Fritz Leiber

In fantasy, impossible things exist. In science fiction, impossible things exist and can be understood by humans. In supernatural horror, impossible things exist and cannot live in peace with humans. — Will Shetterly

There are so many stories to tell in the worlds of science fiction, the worlds of fantasy and horror that to confine yourself to even doing historical revisionist fiction, whatever you want to call it - mash-ups, gimmick lit, absurdist fiction - I don't know if I want to do that anymore. — Seth Grahame-Smith

There is no reticence nor any limit to a 'Majique.' Only the unwillingness of the mind to open itself to the limitless power of possibilities that exist within the unbelievable. — Rob Shepherd

Don't be afraid of the dark, it's a place where you can hide. — August Verona

What if all religiouns were stories, and all stories were true? — Rick Chiantaretto

I can't be yours forever, Mab," I told her, the words flying into my mouth as if by magic. "I already belong to someone else. I belong to Alice! — Joseph Delaney

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

I'm a huge sci-fi/fantasy/horror guy. I love anything in the sci-fi or fantasy genre. — Sean Hayes

It happened as it always did, swallowing her swiftly and completely. Intense. Painful. Quick, vivid colors spun beneath her eyelids. Sounds were sharp inside her skull. Fire shot up through her bones. She may have been screaming and she wouldn't have known. There was smoke in her nose, thick and black, and she couldn't breathe. It stung her eyes and licked at her skin. Wood and metal crashed down as skin blistered and popped and she knew this wasn't her, knew it was someone else, someone with a bigger body, bigger boots and darker jeans, and big ol' hands with scars on the fingers. Men's hands. Nails blunt and dirty with oil and grease and burning and- The cars were on fire. Paper burned and curled and rags ignited, the cement floor pockmarked by flash fires. Meat withered in her nose and she realized it was her. Him. Dancing embers blackened and burned bone. He screamed and she hoped she was not. He writhed and she really hoped she was not. He was dying, dead, and- — Angele Gougeon

You keep squintin' in Savage's dark corners, you gonna wish yourself blind. — Alexandra Sirowy

There's no such thing as a limit on being the best. You can always go for more. That's what it means to be human. No... That's what it means to be me. - Claire Stanfield — Ryohgo Narita

I'm probably better known in the US as a YA writer, I have a huge body of adult horror and fantasy behind me. — Michael Scott

I have never written a book that I wouldn't want to read. The trouble is, I love to read horror, sf, fantasy, mysteries, hero pulps - romantic fiction, in the original, traditional meaning of that term, as opposed to mimetic fiction. But most of all, I love thrillers. — F. Paul Wilson

I cannot breathe, or see, nor swim,
My darkness is composed of him. — Nenia Campbell

The deer hovered by the trees beyond as the sounds of the ravening wolves came to them across the grass, their own senses almost frozen in impotent horror. — David Clement-Davies

As the helpless vampire watched the transformation, it started screaming. It was still screaming when his rows of razor sharp teeth sank into its throat. — Alan Kinross

My god, people are selling their work and people are reading it! The horror! That MFA programs have to advertise that they'll let you write YA or fantasy or what-have-you is just absurd, but we do, because the presumption is that they're closed to that sort of thing. You're offering an MFA in creative writing? Teach people how to write well, worry about that part, let the writers come up with the stories. — Tod Goldberg

But optimism dribbles away when horror repeats. — Tim Reed

I told you. I've been watching." She twirled, her arms outstretched. "Watching, watching, watching. — A.F. Stewart

You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me. — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Sulphurous wind gusted in his wake; the dust of the street swirled and the folds of his black coat flapped against his thin body. — A.F. Stewart

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

There were fat cats and skinny cats. The long-tailed and the bobbed. The daring young leapers, and the old windowsill sleepers. Balls of waddling fluff, smooth-coated prowlers, and hairless ones that looked fragile and wise. The tiger-striped, the ring-tailed, and the ones with matching coloured socks and mittens. There were tabbies and calicos. Manx and Persians. Siamese and Bombay. Ragdolls and Birmans. Maine Coons and Russian Blues. There were Snowshoes and Somalis, Tonkinese and Turkish, and many, many more. Brown and beige and orange and grey and black and white and silver cats, each with gleaming eyes of emerald, or sapphire, or amber. A rainbow of precious stones. — Brooke Burgess

I sleep with the lights on now. Not because I'm afraid of the dark, but because I like to keep the night as far away as I can. — Keith Kekic

Many of the best fantastic stories begin in a leisurely way, set in commonplace surroundings, with exact, meticulous descriptions of an ordinary background, much as in a 'realistic' tale. Then a gradual - or it may be sometimes a shockingly abrupt - change becomes apparent, and the reader begins to realize that what is being described is alien to the world he is accustomed to, that something strange has crept or leapt into it. This strangeness changes the world permanently and fundamentally. — Franz Rottensteiner

There was a single window that tapered into a funnel, with eerie moonlight passing through it, reflecting directly off the globe like a mirror. For a moment, as I rose I saw something glimmering within. Dumbly, with feverish whispers assailing me, I realized it was the center of one of the distant galaxies, flaring after some unknown cataclysm. Its radiance was such that it burst from its prison. It met the moonlight halfway. It created kaleidoscopic colours on the walls. Then, in answer, the reliefs transformed from majestic art into something approaching divine, alive, plays from Egyptian memory, given the spark of life from space. I saw animal-headed gods move. They stepped from the walls to take their place around the altar. All stared at the globe. Each raised their arms in silent supplication. And such was their toxic ecstasy that I wished to join them, to forget my dreadful experiences and revel in something truly wondrous. — Tim Reed

I've never been this dirty. I've never been this sweaty and disgusting. I've never been this afraid, this thirsty, this alone".
"I haven't been a good leader, but
people are counting on me to take them to safety. I don't know if I'm twelve or twenty or if I'm twenty and I don't think age matters anymore
There is a way out. I will find a way out. — Scott Sigler

It's been a pleasure pleasing you. — T.S. Pettibone

I am War. I am Death. I am the Unloved God. — T.S. Pettibone

I wrapped my arms around my body, pushing away my doubts and indecision for just a moment, and looked out toward the cemetery. "Whatever it takes," I vowed. And as I said the words, I felt a chill run across my neck and a ghostly touch slide down my cheek — Catrina Burgess

My whole life changed after I drowned and died in the flood. — Kerry Alan Denney

The horror of what I saw chilled me to the bone. Blood glistened on my friend's lips. He knelt down and whispered something I could not hear. Star then stopped attacking, and to lay down to sleep. What the hell had he done to my dog? Just how much of a chance did I have to live through the next few moments of my life? I turned and ran as fast as I could, heart thudding in my chest. I ran down the pier, running for my life. Something came in front of me and grabbed me. It was Drew. He held my arms still in front of him. He stared intently into my eyes. — Stella Coulson

I didn't panic until my chest collapsed and I couldn't breathe. I gasped until I no longer had a throat to do it with. I didn't feel like I was holding my breath - it was more like I had no lungs. — Rick Chiantaretto