Horror Novel Quotes & Sayings

No one will ever write a horror novel as scary as reading about my symptoms on WebMD. — John Raptor

I'm not the protagonist of a novel or anything...
I'm just a normal college student who likes to read...
But...
If I were to write a book with me as tge main character...
It would be...
...A tragedy. — Sui Ishida

The biggest difference between writing a movie and writing a novel? No one ever tries to sleep with me to get into one of my novels. — Mylo Carbia

I have no use for your body, for within its youth lies a rotten wench already deceased. — Keisha Keenleyside

I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror. — Poppy Z. Brite

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no words written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished because undisturbed: and this is an end unattainable by the novel. Undue brevity is just as exceptionable here as in the poem; but undue length is yet more to be avoided. — Edgar Allan Poe

I'd love for readers to read what books are about so that if they are expecting happy endings in dark horror novels, they won't reach for the Vallium or something worse! — Carole Gill

Socrates is flying. No, he is soaring. The wings behind him beat in a calming rhythm while the cool air rushes past. His wings are all that matter, snapping at the rushing wind like the sails of some great sea vessel, the feathery appendages all he is and all he will ever want to be.
His back muscles flex with the effort that takes him high above the ground. He feels the effort, of course, but sweeping into the sky does not require much of one. The sensation is pleasurable, even exhilarating. With flight there is freedom beyond description, an ecstasy bordering on sexual.
He has only one destination, and that is to soar higher, to no longer be a prisoner of the earth. Here destinations seem irrelevant, the world below small. Flying exceeds every pleasure he knows. In the immense forever of blue sky, all that matters is flight and his ability to climb higher.
Up and up and up... — Kenneth C. Goldman

In this world, there are only 'things that seem like the truth' and 'things that seem like rumors - A-ya — Suzumu

Blood Riders is a novel like you've never read before - part Western and part horror and one-hundred percent sweet excitement. It's vivid and high-velocity, too. I couldn't put it down. — T. Jefferson Parker

A horror novel should reveal to you that you are falling apart. That there are ways your imagination can be made different. Can threaten what you think is. You should be holding onto that tree or rock screaming. Or laughing. Not at absurdity, either: absurdism is just a bourgeois and reactionary nostalgia for good, stable meaning. — Tony Burgess

I'm guessing you're tits deep in a horror novel. Something by Laymon, or Ketchum, or one of those sick fucks you read. — Kyle M. Scott

Maybe I'll really try to kiss her, even if I fall through her like a raindrop. — James B. Willard

If one book's done this well, you want to write another one that does just as well. There's that horror of the second novel that doesn't match up. — Mark Haddon

The sight of her made him understand why he'd lost his faith in God. — Sarah Langan

[M]y mother read a horror novel every night. She had read every one in the library. When birthdays and Christmas would come, I would consider buying her a new one, the latest Dean R. Koontz or Stephen King or whatever, but I couldn't. I didn't want to encourage her. I couldn't touch my father's cigarettes, couldn't look at the Pall Mall cartons in the pantry. I was the sort of child who couldn't even watch commercials for horror movies - the ad for Magic, the movie where marionette kills people. sent me into a six-month nightmare frenzy. So I couldn't look at her books, would turn them over so their covers wouldn't show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood - especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue. — Dave Eggers

Read my book and you shall know thee — Oscar Sanders

WEST SALEM ~ October 2011
A sudden vision, fraught with malevolence and darkness, obscured her sight. The face of a menacing figure turned from the shadows of his grisly handiwork and stared at Sorcha.
Her muscles tensed. By the Goddess, could he see her?
Please! No!
She wanted to scream, to run, but the vision ensnared her into the horrific moment like a fly in a spider's web. — Cherie De Sues

There is such malice, treachery, and dissimulation, even among professed friends and intimate companions, as cannot fail to strike a virtuous mind with horror; and when Vice quits the stage for a moment, her place is immediately occupied by Folly... — Tobias Smollett

grew up reading books where vampires were scary. This novel is an attempt to make them scary again. When I thought of the premise that became DRACULAS, I knew it needed to be a group project. Take four well-known horror authors, let them each create their own unique characters, and have them fight for their lives during a vampire outbreak at a secluded, rural hospital. This is NOT a collection of short stories. It's a single, complete novel. And it's going to freak you out. If you're easily disturbed, have a weak stomach, or are prone to nightmares, stop reading right now. There are no sexy teen heartthrobs herein. You have been warned. — Blake Crouch

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. — Steven Ramirez

Have you ever turned to the end of a horror novel to see if the hero made it out of the darkness and into the light? If you have ever done this, I have three simple words which I feel it is my duty to convey: SHAME ON YOU! It is low to mark your place in a book by folding down the corner of the page where you left off; TURNING TO THE END TO SEE HOW IT CAME OUT is even lower. If you have this habit, I urge you to break it . . . break it at once! — Stephen King

My hobby is to make up these "false stories". The stories that I create impact the public in a completely different form... It's enjoyable when it proceeds just as I expect it to. - A-ya — Suzumu

I've always said women are vicious creatures - Detective Zach Grimes — Lauren Bradshaw

I started writing short stories. I tried writing horror, mystery, science fiction. I joined a little critique group here in town and ran my stories past them. After about three years, I tackled my first novel, Subterranean. It took me 11 months to write. — James Rollins

By writing a horror novel where this inexplicable disorder takes over in our ordered lives, you make order look better by comparison. But below that, there's a part of us that responds to the Who bashing their instruments to pieces on the stage. There's a very primitive part that says, "Do it some more." — Stephen King

Horror and supernatural novels give you a lot of what you look for in a crime novel, just with a twist that was very fresh for me as a reader. — Michael Koryta

Shit rolls downhill. Bureaucracy rolls faster. — David Wellington

...Yes... I am perfect. A perfect 'impostor'. B-ko — Suzumu

I know people think erotica is just a romance novel with rougher sex. It's not. If it's a subgenre of anything, it's horror.
Horror? Really?
Romance is sex plus love. Erotica is sex plus fear. — Tiffany Reisz

When Stephen King elaborated on his inspirations for his novel "Carrie" he draws from a time when he was a young man, and describes his impression when he came upon a statue of Christ on the cross, hanging there in misery, and he thought "If THAT guy ever came back, he probably wouldn't be in a saving mood." — Stephen King

The White Hand did not fry all the brain. He fried some
from the right hemisphere and some from the left. The
remaining brain, The White Hand wrapped in tin foil,
carefully. Tomorrow is, after all, another day, and food should be kept
in storage so it won't go bad. — Siberian Hellhole By Michael Mulvihill

One day someone is going to read my autobiography and say Wow, what a horror novel — M.F. Moonzajer

All cats are gray in the dark. And besides, her actions have less to do with her, and everything to do with you. — Jaye Frances

I was somewhere between angry and turned-on. — Steven Ramirez

I had an idea for a medical conspiracy thriller. Since it was non-horror, I didn't want the publishers and editors bringing a lot of baggage - my history as a genre writer in the SF and horror fields, for instance - to the novel when they read it. I wanted them to consider the book solely on its own merits. So I called myself Colin Andrews. I was tired of seeing my books at floor level. Not that Herman Wouk and Phyllis Whitney and William Wharton are bad company, but I wanted to be up at eye level for a change, where people with bad backs could get a chance to see my books. — F. Paul Wilson

Freeman looked up and grinned. "Karl, this author is American and plainly loves twisted language. Listen: 'The idiot god Azathoth, that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity.' Superb nonsense." Karl snorted. "Why are you reading such stuff?" "It's a novel of horror. Seems appropriate in a war, somehow." Karl — Gregory Benford

I will not be a victim. I will not think like a victim. I am going to avenge all those little girls. I am going to win. — Carolyn Lee Adams

So, I outlined a horror novel and started writing. — George Stephen

You can't blame yourself for what Socrates did. Those birds came because he wanted them to come, at least a part of him did. The pissed off part. Let that roll around in your brain for a while."
Jamie considered this. "No, Eddie. The hurt part, that's what did it."
The crow shrieked again. It seemed louder, and that meant it was closer. Or maybe it was another crow, maybe several. Jamie and Eddie looked toward the sky, listening to the screams. Jamie spoke first.
"We can't let it happen again. We may be the only ones who know the truth about what Socrates can do."
"That thought probably has occurred to Socrates too. — Kenneth C. Goldman

Many of my short stories (all unpublished) were horror, and the novel I'd just finished was horror, too. — George Stephen

I'd never imagined myself writing at all until I was almost 30. And horror films weren't to my taste, at least the super popular (slasher-y) ones of the day back then. The first novel I ever loved as a kid was Frankenstein, and I was always a crazy Hitchcock and Polanski fan ... but I never saw myself - a square spazzy girl from the suburbs - writing anything that would horrify anyone. Or so I thought ... — Karen Walton

People talk and rumors follow," I said.
"Most people claim that only a person possessed of the devil could write such horror."
"And what do you think?"
"You are an angel to me, Eddy, but never bet the devil your head."
"That would make a great title for a story," I observed. — Andrew Barger

Regress towards progress - Dr Wannamaker — Lauren Bradshaw

I like horror, but I tend to like it as seasoning. I'd get very bored if I was told I had to write a horror novel. I'd love to write a novel with horror elements, but too much, and it doesn't taste of anything else. — Neil Gaiman

When he unleashes on her everything falls together. Like a crick in the neck snapped into place, the boy's brain pops and is put right. It is a beautiful undoing, a beautiful becoming. He doesn't stop to think about it when the punches follow her down to the ground. He doesn't stop to notice when she goes still or when the pool of blood under her head pillows out into a great, liquid heart. He doesn't stop until he's pulled off her and he doesn't start to think again until that night, when he's back at home. For hours and hours his brain stays beautifully popped into place. — Carolyn Lee Adams

I didn't want to be the woman who gave herself over willingly to the first man to notice her. I didn't want to be the stupid girl in every novel who loved without question and entered relationships that didn't make sense. — Destinee Hardwick

Writing my novel 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North,' I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that grim line of horror in 1943. — Richard Flanagan

Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel. — Colson Whitehead

Big results require big ambitions. ~ Heraclitus — B.L. Norris