Clive Barker

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

I love the idea of stories being about great beginnings and terrible endings. ”

I love meeting people who've read my books. The prime reason to be on the planet is to make things I can show to other people: paintings, books, movies. ”

One of the things I'm trying to do over and over again in my books is create new mythologies, create new ways to understand the complexity of the world. I think what mythology does is impress upon chaotic experience the patterns, hierarchies and shapes which allow us to interpret the chaos and make fresh sense of it. ”

Gather experience... Look at what you should not look at. A feeling of anxiety is the sure and certain evidence that you should do this. ”

I want to be able to still surprise myself, even shock myself, whether it be sexual content, whether it be about the theological content, whatever. I want to be able to knock myself sideways. Otherwise, what a waste of a life that would be. ”

My life is in the art that I make, and I'm very happy with it. ”

I'm a gay man, living an out life for a long time, and it's tiring and anger-making to hear people continue to spit out the same old dreary cliches about the fact that gay men are doing something unnatural, and there'll be a price to pay when the Rapture happens. ”

I have a vision of the world as being a lot darker, perhaps, than I did when I was 31 and wrote the 'Books of Blood'. ”

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. ”