Top 275 Quotes & Sayings by Guillermo del Toro - Page 5

It's the difference between a parable and a pamphlet. A parable discusses things that are relevant in the past, the future, and the present - regardless of the outcome in the present. A pamphlet, on the other hand, is completely concerned with affecting an outcome in the present, the most immediate present.

The underground of the city is like what's underground in people. Beneath the surface, it's boiling with monsters.

When I stage a violent scene, I try for it to serve a purpose. I do love those things, the makeup effects. But I love them more with the monsters. I never was much of a gore guy. I've always enjoyed just creating monsters.

It’s as hard to explain as a sexual proclivity. Some guys like high-heeled shoes. I like horror.

What is fantastic for me is that the Romantic movement comes out as a counter balance to everything that has been accumulating since the Age of Reason. I think the downfall of imagination as a genre or as a perception starts with the Age of Reason, which says everything else that came before us, all those superstitions, all those myths, are childish.

Without context, things are not scary. Without context, like humor, horror doesn't work.

Ghosts are a metaphor that can be interpreted so many different ways. There's no ending to what you can do. You can make it a fun ghost story. You can make it a deeply disturbing, psychological ghost story.

Frankfurt, discussing a stuntman: He missed being killed in that shot be literally half an inch.

I started when I was eight, doing super 8 films

The movies that I do are in love with cinema, and I try to show that I am in love with cinema. I want them to be, in other ways, drinking from other sources.

When you shoot in America, you have huge beams of sunlight in the windows, very vivid sunlight - it's faster in a way.

There are a lot of period movies where they say, 'This is a portrait of Lady Whatever.' And it's done in like a 1950s or 60s style.

There are two types of producing deals, and I've had both. I've produced over 20 movies now. You are either watching in horror, as the cars take the curve in the grand prix, or you're enjoying it.

I don't try to define the cosmos, I know it's unknowable, but I can understand my place in the world and my place in the universe through a mixture of Taoism, Catholicism, Zen or whatever I have at hand.

I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but I'd love to do one where one of the kids dies, or one of the main characters dies. I love for those things to have a little bit more tragedy.

Normally a period movie has a lot of problems with the graphics. They look modern made.

I only produce movies that have something stylistically different, so that I can learn from the experience of producing.

Producing is great because you learn.

If you don't take it personally, the partnership between producers and directors is very intimate.

I think part of making movies is dealing with restrictions of freedom and budget. I'd rather deal with restrictions of budget. It's better to feel free within any budget.

Somebody said to me, in a very well-meaning way, at a screening, "We love the movie but it's too violent. If you tone down the violence you could reach a great audience of kids.".

I believe that pain can be a rite of passage into learning. I believe that the worse thing that can happen is the sin of banality and comfort. Those things are in my movies, but also my movies are quite the fruit of somebody who defines himself as an agnostic.

If you can be that link to other people that came before you and the ones that come after, then you have to honor that link. If you are doing what somebody else tells you to do and you have success, it's horrible. And if you are doing what other people tell you to do and you fail, it's equally horrible.

I really wanted the house to be a character. And I knew, I said, I'll produce that one, but if I direct it, I need to build a house.

With every movie I produce, I learn something. I watch the directors. It's like the relationship you have with your children. I'm there to learn from my daughters. They are the perfect spirits.

My favorite novel in the world is Frankenstein. I'm going to misquote it horribly, but the monster says, "I have such love in me, more than you can imagine. But, if I cannot provoke it, I will provoke fear."

As a first-time director, you cannot have final cut. But as a producer, you can have final cut.

For any actor to have Oliver Stone call him or her up? It?s a compliment. He expects you to be on your toes. If you?re not, he pokes at you until you react. He?s very provocative, creatively. It started like a lot of hard work, but it ended up a lot of fun.

People think you're like The Godfather, waiting for scripts to come in. But, you're hustling, you're desperate, you're panicked and you're horrified. The movie you think you're going to do next, you don't do. The movie you think you're never going to do, you make.

America is old tobacco: gold and green. It's lush and literally feels like wealth, like optimism, turn of the century America where everything was blooming.

With supernatural things, I have heard ghosts, but I've never seen ghosts. I do seek ghosts and I would love to see one, but I would crap my pants.

: There are only two on-buttons for fear, in any permutation you want. One is when something that shouldn't be is, meaning a presence. And, the other one is an absence.

I think there is a very quiet power in things that are not on screen

They're getting more and more experience on what to expect, and the Hellboy audience is such a faithful and fanatic audience as I am, and you have to really be very open about what you do

The only true immortality is when you don't care if you die. The moment you stop giving credence to gain is when you become invulnerable to pain.