Quotes from Eli Roth

I need to eliminate 'like' from my vocabulary. I begin sentences with, 'That's seriously like... ' I hear myself talking in this Los Angeles high-school student kind of way, and I hate it.

I have so many different projects, I hear voices in my head - the characters talking all at once - and I have to write to make them stop.

Anytime you're the first to speak out against something, there's going to be a backlash.

If someone gets up and walks out of the movie, it means it's really affected them.

You know, I'm from Boston, and in Boston, you are born with a baseball bat in your hand.

What I've always thought I would do is make a bunch of movies and then stop to teach for awhile. And then just teach at film schools - you know, teach children.

As a kid, I was the neighbourhood baby-sitter - very responsible, always in charge.

There's fear in everything, but we can't just succumb to that. We have to suppress it, so we get used to suppressing fear to make it through the our day. Otherwise, we'd become paralyzed by them.

Horror movies are the best date movies. There's no wondering, 'When do I put my arm around her?'

If I don't come home covered head to toe in fake blood then I haven't done my job as a horror director.

One of the great elements of the supernatural is having that mystery and letting people's imaginations run wild with it.

I generally follow my own compass and make films about what's scaring me.

The scariest people are usually the sweetest.

Even post-WWII, nobody talked about the Holocaust. It wasn't until the '50s that people started talking about it.

I like to take risks and do weird things and stuff that's not normal compared to other Hollywood movies. Not stuff that's totally avant garde and daring, but doing stuff that's in other languages and not using stars and using real people - things that they generally don't do in mainstream films.

As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.

I think you should make movies as long as the story dictates.

I have no tattoos. There's nothing I've even been that into to get a tattoo of it.

I look at careers like Ben Stiller and think that's a great career to have where you're doing movies that you write and direct, and also act in films, although he's primarily an actor.

When you're making a television show, it's about the story and arc of the show rather than any particular episode or director.

Life is a series of avoiding horrible situations until ultimately you're dead. That's how I feel about things.

I think that many people are ashamed when they feel afraid. There's this thing in our society that you're not allowed to feel scared. You have to be a man and put on a brave face, but we all have fears.

I love movies that are just straight-up exploitation, but the ones that endure and the ones that last are the ones where the filmmakers put in that extra level of thought; after 25 years you put them on in front of an audience, and they'll respond to it and enjoy it.

I think filmmakers, in general... There are some awesome, really great filmmakers - but on the whole, filmmakers, actors, I think they are the biggest bunch of whiny, over-paid babies on the planet.