John Carpenter famous quotes

03-25-2025

I have two different categories of favorite films. One is the emotional favorites, which means these are generally films that I saw when I was a kid; anything you see in your formative years is more powerful, because it really stays with you forever. The second category is films that I saw while I was learning the craft of motion pictures.
-- John Carpenter

#Powerful #Mean #Kids
It's a very good time for horror. This business certainly has changed, but there's still room for serious horror films. Look at 28 Days Later, that's not a tongue-in-cheek picture.
-- John Carpenter

#Rooms #Tongue #Serious
What scares me is what scares you. We’re all afraid of the same things. That’s why horror is such a powerful genre. All you have to do is ask yourself what frightens you and you’ll know what frightens me.
-- John Carpenter

#Powerful #Horror Genre #Scare
The strongest human emotion is fear. It's the essence of any good thriller that, for a little while, you believe in the boogeyman.
-- John Carpenter

#Fear #Believe #Essence
It [horror genre] never dies. It just keeps getting reinvented and it always will. Horror is a universal language; we're all afraid. We're born afraid, we're all afraid of things: death, disfigurement, loss of a loved one. Everything that I'm afraid of, you're afraid of and vice versa. So everybody feels fear and suspense.
-- John Carpenter

#Loss #Horror Genre #Vices
To make Michael Myers frightening, I had him walk like a man, not a monster.
-- John Carpenter

#Men #Scary #Monsters
There are two different stories in horror: internal and external. In external horror films, the evil comes from the outside, the other tribe, this thing in the darkness that we don't understand. Internal is the human heart.
-- John Carpenter

#Heart #Two #Evil
Movies are pieces of film stuck together in a certain rhythm, an absolute beat, like a musical composition. The rhythm you create affects the audience.
-- John Carpenter

#Musical #Together #Pieces
Evil hiding among us is an ancient theme.
-- John Carpenter

#Halloween #Evil #Horror
We all question our sanity. Everyone has had an experience of loss of control of something.
-- John Carpenter

#Loss #Sanity
Directing is all about storytelling. It's not about equipment, or anything else.
-- John Carpenter

#Storytelling #Equipment
When you have no money, you need invention.
-- John Carpenter

#Needs #Invention #No Money
Horror has been a genre since the beginning of cinema, all the way back to the days of silent films. I don't think it will ever go away because it's so universal. Humor doesn't always travel to other countries, but horror does.
-- John Carpenter

#Country #Thinking #Silent Films
Horror found me. I got into the movie business to make westerns.
-- John Carpenter

#Horror #Found #Movie Business
Fears are all psychological. Being afraid of death, loss of a loved one and disfigurement are all powered by your mind, and that's very powerful stuff.
-- John Carpenter

#Powerful #Loss #Mind
Horror is a reaction; it's not a genre. Somebody's life would have to be in danger for it [story] to be a horror story.
-- John Carpenter

#Horror Stories #Danger #Reactions
To make movies you just have to want it enough. You have to have the passion for telling stories. You have to get by the love-of-movies aspect. You can't just be a movie fan.
-- John Carpenter

#Passion #Fans #Stories
When somebody who makes movies for a living - either as an actor, writer, producer or director - lives to be a certain age, you have to admire them. It is an act of courage to make a film - a courage for which you are not prepared in the rest of life. It is very hard and very destructive. But we do it because we love it.
-- John Carpenter

#Rest Of Life #Age #Actors
Horror is always the same. It changes with the culture and changes with technology. The stories are always the same. There are just two basic stories in horror, two simple ones -- evil is outside and evil is in here [points to his heart].
-- John Carpenter

#Heart #Technology #Simple
I'm pretty happy with who I am. I like myself and what I'm doing. I don't need to be the world's greatest director or the most famous -- or the richest. I don't need to make a whole lot of great films. I can do my job and I can do it pretty well. This is the realization I've come to, later in life. It's called growing up.
-- John Carpenter

#Jobs #Growing Up #Later In Life
A lot of it [success] is luck. That's a huge part of it that no one wants to talk about. You just got to be in the right place at the right time.
-- John Carpenter

#Luck #Want #Right Time
I don't watch my films. I've seen 'em enough after cutting them and putting the music on. I don't ever want to see them again.
-- John Carpenter

#Cutting #Watches #Ems
Horror stories have always worked on film. It's where they work. That's where vampires and ghosts and UFOs are real. They're not particularly real in life, but they're real on the screen. It's the communal aspect of movie-watching.
-- John Carpenter

#Real #Horror Stories #Vampire
Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.
-- John Carpenter

#Hard Work #People #Directors
I can play just about any keyboard but I can't read or write a note.
-- John Carpenter

#Writing #Play #Keyboards
To survive you have to withstand the changes in the business. This business has gone through so many changes since I was young and now it is on to something else. It is all weird today, for me, because I am from the old times. You just have to keep adapting. Isn't that Darwinism? The creature that adapts to its environment survives.
-- John Carpenter

#Gone #Today #Environment

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