Quotes by Clive Barker

At best you can hold death at bay, you can pretend it isn't there; but to deny it totally is a sickness. And I think that horror fiction is one of the ways to approach these problems, and, perversely perhaps, to enjoy a vicarious confrontation with them.

But I think humans are innately religious as a species, so you don't need a specific excuse for examining the perversely unholy.

I have the normal complement of anxieties, neuroses, psychoses and whatever else - but I'm absolutely nothing special.

I wrote none of these books. I made none of these films. Nor drew the drawings, nor opined at such length on death, sex and the human condition.

I'm a great dog fanatic. My own dog died a little while ago and I take it very personally when things die - it's a major offence.

I've never worked where it was hard to be gay. Besides, being gay is a spectacular irrelevance to getting on with your life.

It's irritating, because I would like to make movies that were as unrelenting and as explicit in their metaphysical, sexual and violent imagery as the stories. But with the way censorship is at present, there's no way you can do that.

My imagination is my polestar; I steer by that.

On the crassest level, the lady gets into the box, the lady is sawn in half, the lady is in two pieces, the box is put back together again and the lady is whole. The magician, the shaman figure, the worker of miracles divides and subdivides himself and his assistants. He's drowned, is bound, is filled with swords, and comes out whole.

You can plan to be brave - it's even better if you just try to be brave.

It is great good health to believe, as the Hindus do, that there are 33 million gods and goddesses in the world. It is great good health to want to understand one's dreams. It is great good health to desire the ambiguous and paradoxical.