Quotes from James Herbert

I have a dread of sounding pretentious and try not to talk too much about what I do.

I'm terrible in the mornings, but I'm always at my desk by 10 A.M.

I've actually seen a ghost, so I know they're really around.

I'm very cagey about making friends, and I rarely do.

For me, a good friend is someone you might only see once or twice a year but each time it feels as though you've just seen them last week.

I've always loved comic books. As a kid, I used to read cowboy stories and historical comics about other worlds, unknown places that would take me out of myself and which helped to develop my imagination.

I worry about the many things that could happen to the people I love.

I grew up in the East End of London, the youngest of three boys in a Catholic household. Both my parents were market traders and worked seven days a week.

To be haunted is to glimpse a truth that might best be hidden.

Life is full of crises, we all know that. It's how we learn, how we grow. They help form character, mould the man (or woman), as it were. As an opposite to good times, they even help us appreciate life a little more; and a person without strife is a person without passion, for trauma both tests and strengthens moral fibre, becomes a measure of human depth. There is no adversity on this earth that cannot be overcome with fortitude and positive will.

Terror was the key, of course, for there's a fine line between paralyzing dread and galvanizing fright.

Now get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans

He died. And waited.

He never walked away from a problem, but occasionally liked to bury it and dig it up later.

Sometimes only evil could defeat another evil. Degrees

The photographer was lost for riposte, obvious though it should have been; instead he turned to run. At least his mind did. In fact, his mind had already scooted down the Broad Walk and was clambering over the railings at the end, whereas his body had remained rooted to the spot. With some effort he looked down at his feet as if to reprimand them. They refused to take notice.

was man, mortal bloody man, who created the myths.

The dead body of Gardenia was crashing around the cabin, eyes rolling in its head and mouth grinning crazily.

But the point was it was the construction itself that had made a minor disaster into a major one. And the construction had been a cheaper means of building - a cheaper way of cramming thirty or forty families into the smallest square footage possible. That is what embittered Harris. The incompetence of 'authority'.

Still, that was the city, a great big filthy breeding-place for vermin – animal and human.

There is no adversity on this earth that cannot be overcome with fortitude and positive will.

I turned away, already wondering if he'd stick to the handout's condition, or if he'd head straight for his regular supplier. A tenner wouldn't buy him much, so maybe he'd just drink it away. I let it go: I could only make the offer – the rest was up to him. I'd learned a long time ago it was all you could do.

art stirred the imagination – my God, it allowed the imagination! – in a way that reality rarely does.

They tore the trousers of his track suit from his body and turned him over on to his back, grabbing and kicking at his exposed testicles.