A Quote by Colson Whitehead

Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel.
I grew up on genre - on Westerns, spy thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy novels, horror novels. Especially horror novels.
Mainly horror movies and exploitation movies and a lot of stuff comes from those press books from those old movies. Lines out of old movies, comic books that we collect, all the old horror comics of the 50s, probably about the only comics that we collect are obscure horror comics, the real sick ones from the 50s. Some stuff comes from there but mainly just old records, old rockabilly records and that stuff, singles mainly, 45s.
As a kid I was into horror. I loved horror. Horror was huge. I was always into horror. Goosebumps for me was massive growing up. Horror for me was always a big thing.
Horror used to be one thing, and I think that's starting to broaden - there can have subgenres, and other things can be going on in a horror story. In comics, you'll never get the 'Boo' effect in a comic; you can go for mood, atmosphere and personal tragedy to build the horror elements and sense of dread.
I like horror, but I tend to like it as seasoning. I'd get very bored if I was told I had to write a horror novel. I'd love to write a novel with horror elements, but too much, and it doesn't taste of anything else.
I write what I want to write. Period. I don't write novels-for-hire using media tie-in characters, I don't write suspense novels or thrillers. I write horror. And if no one wants to buy my books, I'll just keep writing them until they do sell--and get a job at Taco Bell in the meantime.
When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels.
I grew up on all sorts of horror - Hammer Horror and Vincent Price's 'Theatre Of Blood.' I loved the hidden, scary layers, but there wasn't that much around for youngsters in terms of horror books. I can remember reading Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot' and 'Cujo,' but I thought there should be more for teenaged horror fans.
I spent years only ever reading horror and then trying to write horror - and deep down, a horror writer is still what I'd love to be. But it wasn't until I started writing crime that things began to work for me.
I didn't get a formal introduction to horror until right about the age of 12, when my uncle showed me 'Twilight Zone: The Movie.' When you're 12 years old, and you see that - oh, God. I devoured as many horror movies and novels as possible.
I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction.
I don't like being pigeonholed at all. It stemmed from after 'Mandy Lane': I was being offered all these horror movies. I love horror movies, but when I dreamed of being a director, it was always doing all sorts of things.
When there's a great horror movie, people are like, 'Horror's back!' And when there's a series of not so good ones, 'Horror's dead.' I think it's all about the quality. When there are one or two good horror movies in a row, people come out interested again.
I always laugh because people assume I love horror because I do a horror movie, but I'm not a huge horror fan.
Horror grows impatient, rhetorically, with the Stoic fatalism of Ecclesiastes. That we are all going to die, that death mocks and cancels every one of our acts and attainments and every moment of our life histories, this knowledge is to storytelling what rust is to oxidation; the writer of horror holds with those who favor fire. The horror writer is not content to report on death as the universal system of human weather; he or she chases tornadoes. Horror is Stoicism with a taste for spectacle.
I love horror comedies, and I love horror movies. In particular, I love horror movies from the '80s that have practical monsters in them. They're not just slasher movies with people going to kill people in people's houses. I do like these ridiculous monster movies. They're scary, but they're absurd. I had a lot of fun in my 20's, watching a lot of these movies late at night.
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