Quotes from Clive Barker

The demon – what did Harry call him? Dick face? Pinprick? Pinhead! That was it.

Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself. So

Who can call a man dead whose words still hush us and whose sentiments move?

This is the state of the beast, it said, to eat and be eaten.

Extinct," Steep murmured. "Yes." He smiled. "Extinct, extinct, extinct." It was like a mantra:

Your flesh is killing your spirit

There was a primitive power in naming someone. It gave you a handle on a person.

My imagination is my polestar; I steer by that.

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

The 'Hellraiser' situation was pretty darn wonderful and very unusual. Nor did I understand how radically unusual the thesis of 'Nightbreed' was.

As for theatre, there's ups and downs to everything. Theatre is ephemeral. But that is part of its charm because you can always say the production was better than it was.

A soul of water a soul of stone. A soul by name a soul unknown. The hours unmake our flesh our bone. The Soul is all and all alone!

Three is the number of those who do holy work; Two is the number of those who do lover's work; One is the number of those who do perfect evil Or perfect good.

Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red.

If you want to look like the people next door, you're probably smothering yourself and your dreams.

The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I've also stood in front of those same paintings with people who've said, 'let's get on to the Botticellis as soon as possible.' I have lingered, of course.

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.

I dreamed I spoke in another's language, I dreamed I lived in another's skin, I dreamed I was my own beloved, I dreamed I was a tiger's kin. I dreamed that Eden lived inside me, And when I breathed a garden came, I dreamed I knew all of Creation, I dreamed I knew the Creator's name. I dreamed--and this dream was the finest-- That all I dreamed was real and true, And we would live in joy forever, You in me, and me in you.

Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red.

Horror fiction] shows us that the control we believe we have is purely illusory, and that every moment we teeter on chaos and oblivion.

Nothing else wounds so deeply and irreparably. Nothing else robs us of hope so much as being unloved by one we love

The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I've also stood in front of those same paintings with people who've said, 'let's get on to the Botticellis as soon as possible.' I have lingered, of course.

We're too much ourselves. Afraid of letting go of what we are, in case we are nothing, and holding on so tight, we lose everything else.

That which is imagined can never be lost.