Supernatural Horror Stories Quotes

So it is that supernatural horror is the product of a profoundly divided species of being. It is not the pastime of even our closest relations in the wholly natural world: we gained it, as part of our gloomy inheritance, when we became what we are. Once awareness of the human predicament was achieved, we immediately took off in two directions, splitting ourselves down the middle. One half became dedicated to apologetics, even celebration, of our new toy of consciousness. The other half condemned and occasionally launched direct assaults on this gift. ~ Thomas Ligotti

While horror may make us squirm or quake, it will not make us cry at the pity of things. The vampire may symbolize our horror of both life and death, but none of us has ever been uprooted by a symbol. The zombie may conceptualize our sickness of the flesh and its appetites, but no one has ever been sickened to death by a concept. ~ Thomas Ligotti

Where evil walks, hell follows. ~ Asa Swift

In supernatural horror stories, however, magical thinking is a completely different matter. Those characters contending with what seems to be the work of magic will deny till the very last moment that anything magical is going on. They will invoke reason and evidence and eek out corroborations for the cause of their problems. But readers of these stories are rarely, if ever, on the side of these characters. They desperately want to believe that there is indeed something magical going on and they are primed to accept it whenever it occurs. Some readers especially enjoy a story with bad magic, as it assures them that magic is confined to fiction and will not leak into their real lives. This is the most perverse form of magical thinking and the one least likely to be recognized as such. ~ Thomas Ligotti

I was a struggling single mom when my novel, The Forlorned, became a motion picture. I thought my life had turned around for the better until a convicted child molester sued me for trademark infringement over the word FORLORNED. Finally, after three long years of legal proceedings, the US Supreme Court sided with me. Always stand up and fight for what is right. Never give in - never give up! ~ Angela J. Townsend

Broad daylight does not encourage the apprehension of horror. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Once and for all, let us speak the paradox aloud: "We have been force-fed for so long the shudders of a thousand graveyards that at last, seeking a macabre redemption, a salvation by horror, we willingly consume the terrors of the tomb...and find them to our liking. ~ Thomas Ligotti

The doctrine of hell does not stand alone as a kind of ancient Christian horror story. Rather, hell is inseparable from three other interrelated biblical truths: human sin, God's holiness, and the cross of Christ. ~ Douglas Groothuis

Some people have got advice, some people have got horror stories. I like people that look you in the eye with a glow and say "It's gonna be cool." ~ Russell Crowe

I have always loved horror very much. I used to write stories for DC's House of Mystery. It was one of my first jobs writing for comics, and I loved it. ~ Sergio Aragones

I had at least thought there would be nobility in war. I know it exists. There are so many stories, and some of them have to be true. But I see mostly normal men, trying to do good, beaten down by horror, by their inability to quell their own rages, by their masculine posturing and their so-called hardness, their desire to be tougher, and therefore crueler, than their circumstance. And yet, I have this sense that this place is holier than back home. Gluttonous, fat, oversexed, overconsuming, materialist home, where we're too lazy to see our own faults. At least here, Rodriguez has the decency to worry about hell. The moon is unspeakably beautiful tonight. Ramadi is not. Strange that people live in such a place. • • • ~ Phil Klay

In a weird, twisted way, Nita almost felt like Kovit's and her stories were opposite facets on the same diamond. Different, sure, but similar in some fundamental ways. It made Nita feel . . . weird. Squiggly, not-quite empathy, but sort of fear-empathy . . . something. Nita couldn't put it into words. ~ Rebecca Schaeffer

A cowboy, a lawyer, and a mechanic watched Queen of the Damned," I murmured.
Warren - who had once, a long time ago, been a cowboy - snickered and wiggled his bare feet. "It could be the beginning of either a bad joke or a horror story."
"No," said Kyle, the lawyer, whose head was propped up on my thigh. "If you want a horror story, you have to start out with a werewolf, his gorgeous lover, and a walker. ~ Patricia Briggs

You hear a lot of horror stories about proposing and things going horribly wrong - it went really, really well and I was really pleased when she said yes. ~ Prince William

I am coming to the end of acting. I have a list: another stage production, maybe one or two more movies, one more season of American Horror Story ... and then that is it for me. Because I think that's enough. I want to go out with a bang ... or should I say, a scare? ~ Jessica Lange

By means of supernatural horror we may evade, if momentarily, the horrific reprisals of affirmation. Every one of us, having been stolen from nonexistence, opens his eyes on the world and looks down the road at a few convulsions and a final obliteration. What a weird scenario. So why affirm anything, why make a pathetic virtue of a terrible necessity? We are destined to a fool's fate that deserves to be mocked. And since there is no one else around to do the mocking, we will take on the job. So let us delight in the Cosmic Macabre. At least we may send up a few bitter laughs into the cobwebbed corners of this crusty old universe. ~ Thomas Ligotti

When I had dyslexia, they didn't diagnose it as that. It was frustrating and embarrassing. I could tell you a lot of horror stories about what you feel like on the inside. ~ Nolan Ryan

There's no briefing sheet on what to do when a supernatural soul-sucking horror disguised as a beautiful woman starts crying on your shoulder. ~ Charles Stross

For those who relish speculation regarding the future, the tale of supernatural horror provides an interesting field. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Horror stories? Absolutely. To share? Not on your life. ~ Tera Lynn Childs

I love horror movies and I love being scared, but I don't like them, if they're not based on a true story. It's like knowing how the sausage is made. ~ Olivia Munn

With a ring around the rosary
And a pocket full of crosses
Ashes to ashes
They'll all fall down ~ Matthew Fitzpatrick

The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long and that the light shone through them. ~ M.R. James

Something like panic struck at Hurlow. Moffat's calm confession of fear withdrew the prop upon which he had leaned. Down there, among the motionless shadows, lurked invisible things, things that were nameless, shapeless and malignant; things which could see without being seen. One of the long lost terrors of childhood returned to him, and like a child he put his hand into Moffat's. ~ A.M. Burrage

Science, the agent that once promised to eradicate the supernatural, had, through the nuclear threat, resurrected it. Magic was not exactly alive, but it was surely undead. ~ Jim Trombetta

The table is silent again while we mull that over. Then Sophie reminds us that she dated a gay guy for two years.

"Dating sucks," I conclude.

"I got kicked out a guy's apartment once," Everly offers as her contribution to dating horror stories.

"You broke into his apartment, Everly. You stole his key and broke in. You're his dating horror story, not the other way around," I remind her while Sophie and Sandra laugh.

"Minor detail, Chloe. ~ Jana Aston

Like us, many students had spent their years in college thinking they'd get that well-paying, planet-saving job, even if they'd heard horror stories from recent underemployed grads. Those jobs, of course, no longer exist (if they ever did). By 2009, 17.4 million college graduates had jobs that didn't even require a degree. There are 365,000 cashiers and 318,000 waiters and waitresses in America who have bachelor's degrees, as do one-fifth of those working in the retail industry. More than 100,000 college graduates are janitors and 18,000 push carts. (There are 5,057 janitors in the United States who have doctorates and professional degrees!) ~ Ken Ilgunas

The times have changed and now the story is old, but yet it all remains the same, a victim in the cold. ~ Stephen Harker

It felt oily inside her head. There were strings of Xavier Stancliff caught inside of her, holding on and spiderwebbing out as he plotted and waited and thought: this is all the bitch deserves. Swallowing, Sandra pushed herself off the bed. It was late and the room was dark. She could see the bundled lump of Jack beneath his own covers. He'd left the television on and the light flickered down the tiny hall. Shadows danced and Sandra shivered as she left the room.

In another life, she would have told Danny and Jack about the man. Danny would have whispered, "It's alright," and smoothed back her hair from her face and kissed her, lips dry and coarse on her forehead. Then he and Jack would've left while she was sleeping. They would've trampled the flowers and climbed into Xavier Stanliff's window and when Sandra woke up there would have been one less man in the world. ~ Angele Gougeon

There's always been a need for horror fiction, though
ghost stories have been a staple of every human society since the beginning of recorded literature
and while commercially the field may have its ups and downs, it will never go away. Hell, look at the Bible: gods, devils, ghosts, witches, giants, resurrections. That's one big horror story. And it's the most popular book on the planet. ~ Bentley Little

My father and I used to watch a ton of old horror movies when I was growing up. 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' was one of my father's favorites and he was very excited for me to see the film. But after the movie was over, I told him that I was kind of bored. I said to him, 'I'm sorry, Daddy, but I saw the zipper in the back of the monster's costume. From that point on, I was really never scared at all. The point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe someone intentionally tipped off the target. And I maintain that no one made some horrendous mistake, which I'm now trying to cover up. I believe what really happened with the operation was that our target ended up seeing the zipper. Orlo Kharms realized something around him wasn't… real. And he was able to avoid the trap we had laid out for him. ~ Richard Finney

I always go with the story and character and if those are good and if the setting is something that's scary (horror films seem to always take place at night and the weather's always bad) then I might be interested. ~ David Naughton

The world of shadows and superstition that was Victorian England, so well depicted in this 1871 tale, was unique. While the foundations of so much of our present knowledge of subjects like medicine, public health, electricity, chemistry and agriculture, were being, if not laid, at least mapped out, people could still believe in the existence of devils and demons. And why not? A good ghost story is pure entertainment. It was not until well into the twentieth century that ghost stories began to have a deeper significance and to become allegorical; in fact, to lose their charm. No mental effort is required to read 'The Weird Woman', no seeking for hidden meanings; there are no complexities of plot, no allegory on the state of the world. And so it should be. At what other point in literary history could a man, standing over the body of his fiancee, say such a line as this:

'Speak, hound! Or, by heaven, this night shall witness two murders instead of one!'

Those were the days.

(introduction to "The Weird Woman") ~ Hugh Lamb

My story ended where so many stories have ended since the Rising: with a man - in this case, my adoptive brother and best friend, Shaun - holding a gun to the base of my skull as the virus in my blood betrayed me, transforming me from a thinking human being into something better suited to a horror movie. ~ Mira Grant

As she walked, the horror stories she'd heard from Felix and the others became real. This is what their underground efforts were fighting against. These camps, these guards, were reality to thousands of people ... Reality to the person who had just made the trip up the chimney. If they did not stop this madness, it would be the end of them all. ~ Tricia Goyer

Anyone can write a story based on the kind of horror where you see a guy in car and then there's the bad guy in the back seat. It's infantile to rely on that for telling a story. That's like going to bed and thinking there's a monster under your bed. It's silly. ~ Sergio Aragones

I know you hear horror stories about child actors, but I think in my family when I did start acting it was never a big deal. ~ Ashley Johnson