Quotes by John Carpenter

“Evil hiding among us is an ancient theme.”

“To make Michael Myers frightening, I had him walk like a man, not a monster.”

“In England, Im a horror movie director. In Germany, Im a filmmaker. In the US, Im a bum.”

“One could make money and get a career going with a low-budget horror film about killers attacking on holidays. It is always flattering to have somebody copy you.”

“I think Tarantino has changed things.”

“Its a very good time for horror. This business certainly has changed, but theres still room for serious horror films. Look at 28 Days Later, thats not a tongue-in-cheek picture.”

“What scares me is what scares you. Were all afraid of the same things. Thats why horror is such a powerful genre. All you have to do is ask yourself what frightens you and youll know what frightens me.”

“I made a decision back in 1978 that, in a trade off for money when I directed Halloween, I would have my name above the title in order to basically brand these movies my own.”

“In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers. Laurie, Jamie Lees character, was shy and somewhat repressed. And Michael Myers, the killer, is definitely repressed. They have certain similarities.”

“I have news for him. They turned me into a movie director.”

“He only played about one year; then he retired,”

“Ive got so much stuff in boxes at home, I could have five different museums,”

“I have a lot of people donate stuff to me, ... People just give it to me because they know I wouldnt sell it.”

“We have been fortunate not to have more incidents there,”

“A life jacket will at least keep you floating.”

“A lot of things that come out of the university are enabling-types of technologies or platforms that can be licensed.”

“If were going to need to pay a match of 25 percent on the cost of Katrina at the same time we have to absorb these lost revenues, frankly I dont know what were going to do.”

“Most of us come from the world of low-budget features. You learn to work quickly. But these were great -- theyre very much like well-developed short stories.”

“We have all been beaten up in our careers, because horror is viewed as a low-rent genre, just a notch or two above pornography. And while its true that we traffic in dark areas of violence and horror in our profession, because we get everything out on the screen and dont carry it around with us, we really are mostly nice guys.”

“Halloween put me on the map, and Im very sad to hear of his death.”