110+ Clive Barker Quotes On Writing, Death And Question

Clive Barker is an English writer, film director, and visual artist. He is best known for his work in the horror genre, particularly his series of short stories and novels collectively known as The Books of Blood. He is also the writer and director of the 1987 horror film Hellraiser. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Clive Barker on love, life, writing.

Top 10 Clive Barker Quotes

1. any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.
2. A monster lies in wait in me,a stew of wounds and misery.But fiercer still in life and limb,the me that lies in wait in him
3. I've never worked where it was hard to be gay. Besides, being gay is a spectacular irrelevance to getting on with your life.
4. 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.
5. So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.
6. Everything is in flux: everything changes; the body changes, the soul changes. We are capable of extraordinary self-transmutat ion and internal self-transforma tion.
7. To dream in isolation can be properly splendid to be sure; but to dream in company seems to me infinitely preferable.
8. ..She had that brand of pragmatism that would find her the first brewing tea after Armageddon.
9. Nothing else wounds so deeply and irreparably. Nothing else robs us of hope so much as being unloved by one we love
10. 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.

Clive Barker Short Quotes

• Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red.
• You must be careful with kindness. It's usually mistaken for weakness by stupid people.
• One man's pornography is another man's theology.
• You can plan to be brave - it's even better if you just try to be brave.
• Your flesh is killing your spirit. You have forsaken yourself.
• Welcome to the worst nightmare of all, reality!
• Leavening the flat bread of what we know, with the yeast of what we dream may come to pass.
• What I tried to do is deliver movies that have worked for me more than once.
• How many human eyes...had snatched glimpses of their secret anatomies, down the passage of years?
• We burn so hard, but we shed so little light; it makes us crazy and sad.

Clive Barker Quotes About Love

I've learned two things in my life. One that love is the beginning and end of all meaning. And two that it is the same thing whatever shape our souls have taken on this journey. Love is love. Is love. — Clive Barker

One part of love is innocence One part of love is guilt One part the milk that in a sense Is soured as soon as spilt One part of love is sentiment One part of love is lust One part is the presentiment Of our return to dust — Clive Barker

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. — Clive Barker

Of all the rash and midnight promises made in the name of love, none, Boone now knew, was more certain to be broken than "I'll never leave you. — Clive Barker

You'll learn, honey. Love can be the best thing in life. And it can be the worst. The absolute worst. — Clive Barker

We each die countless little deaths on our way to the last. We die out of shame as humiliation. We perish from despair. And, of course, we die for love. — Clive Barker

Wherever I go, I will speak of you with love. — Clive Barker

There are lives lived for love, and lives lived for art. We, happy band, have chosen the later persuasion. — Clive Barker

A man kills the thing he loves, and he must die a little himself. — Clive Barker

There must still be room for the falling note, of course. Even in an undying world there are times when beauty passes from sight, or love passes from the heart, and we feel the sorrow of partition. — Clive Barker

Clive Barker Quotes About Life

We are all our own graveyards, I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived, and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present. — Clive Barker

I can see in your eyes that there’s no seam of untapped joy left in you. The best of life has come and gone. Those days when sudden epiphanies swept over you, and you had visions of the rightness of all things and of your place amongst them; they’re history. You’re in a darker place now. — Clive Barker

Superman is, after all, an alien life form. He is simply the acceptable face of invading realities. — Clive Barker

O little one, My little one, Come with me, Your life is done. Forget the future, Forget the past. Life is over: Breathe your last. — Clive Barker

You just have to trust your own madness. — Clive Barker

Life is short And pleasures few And holed the ship And drowned the crew But o! But o! How very blue the sea is. — Clive Barker

Writing about the unholy is one way of writing about what is sacred. — Clive Barker

I haven't even had a life I could call my own, and you're ready to slot me into the grand design. Well, I don't think I want to go. I want to be my own design. — Clive Barker

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

Clive Barker Quotes About Death

At best you can hold death at bay, you can pretend it isn't there; but to deny it totally is a sickness. And I think that horror fiction is one of the ways to approach these problems, and, perversely perhaps, to enjoy a vicarious confrontation with them. — Clive Barker

Give me B movies or give me death! — Clive Barker

I think that horror fiction is one of the ways to approach these problems of death. — Clive Barker

To you who have never died, may I say: Welcome to the world! — Clive Barker

My feet are killing me." "I knew somebody who had feet like that. They'd walk all over him. Archie Kashanian was his name. He used to wake up with footprints all over his chest, all over his face. It was the death of him, finally. — Clive Barker

Clive Barker Quotes About Imaginative

I was a weird little kid. I was very irritable, bored, frustrated. I felt my imagination bubbling inside my head without having any way to express itself. Given a crayon and paper, I would not draw a train or a house. I would draw these monsters, beasts and demons. — Clive Barker

My imagination is my polestar; I steer by that. — Clive Barker

Keep it simple. Trust your imagination. Discover what is unique about your imagination. Don't simply read a story and copy it. I go into myself. Then I transcribe what visions I have. If those ideas are original, and you are devoted, you will go far. — Clive Barker

That which is imagined can never be lost. — Clive Barker

Clive Barker Famous Quotes And Sayings

Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It’s only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes—if necessary—brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must. — Clive Barker

You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it. — Clive Barker

Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing. — Clive Barker

Here is a list of terrible things, The jaws of sharks, a vultures wings The rabid bite of the dogs of war, The voice of one who went before, But most of all the mirror's gaze, Which counts us out our numbered days. — Clive Barker

Sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree, But it was eaten by a newt, And now I have no cuddly fruit, O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree! — Clive Barker

It’s only when you’ve lost someone that you realize the nonsense of that phrase “It’s a small world”. It isn’t. It’s a vast, devouring world, especially if you’re alone. — Clive Barker

Witch, do this for me, Find me a moon made of longing. Then cut it sliver thin, and having cut it, hang it high above my beloved's house, so that she may look up tonight and see it, and seeing it, sigh for me as I sigh for her, moon or no moon. — Clive Barker

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. — Clive Barker

Zombies are the liberal nightmare. Here you have the masses, whom you would love to love, appearing at your front door with their faces falling off; and you're trying to be as humane as you possibly can, but they are, after all, eating the cat. And the fear of mass activity, of mindlessness on a national scale, underlies my fear of zombies. — Clive Barker

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

Well, it was most likely too late; there would not be time for me to flagellate myself for every dishonorable deed in that list, nor any chance to make good the harms I’d done. Minor harms, to be sure, in the scheme of things; but large enough to regret. — Clive Barker

All things are true. God's an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live." - Peloquin — Clive Barker

The world had seen so many Ages: the Age of Enlightenment; of Reformation; of Reason. Now, at last, the Age of Desire. And after this, an end to Ages; an end, perhaps, to everything. — Clive Barker

Even winter — the hardest season, the most implacable — dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself. — Clive Barker

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. — Clive Barker

I don't like to make a distinction between the writer and the painter , finally , because I do both things anyway . Everybody's dreaming and trying to put down their dreams in the way that their hand knows best . I feel as much a unity , as much comradeship , with painters as I do writers . — Clive Barker

After a battle lasting many ages, The Devil won, And said to God (who had been his Maker): Lord, We are about to witness the unmaking of Creation By my hand. I would not wish you to think me cruel, So I beg you, take three things From this world before I destroy it. Three things, and then the rest will be wiped away.' God thought for a little time. And at last He said: No, there is nothing.' The Devil was surprised. Not even you, Lord?' he said. And God said: No. Not even me. — Clive Barker

If we have nothing to do but service our own pleasure - because society has taught us that's all we're worth and we're exiled from positions of authority from which we could actually shape society - then we just become hedonists. Eventually, despite how great it may look on Saturday night, come Monday morning there's just purposelessness. — Clive Barker

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

Mutilation is the badge that can never be taken off, and sets us apart from all others. Pain is important to the bonding-a physical horror that bonds us ever tighter to all those who have partaken. The intensity of the experience helps to widen the gulf between us and those who have not shared. — Clive Barker

Those old hypocrites. They talk about killing witches but the Good Book’s full of magic. Turning the Nile to blood and parting the Red Sea. What’s that if it’s not good old-fashioned magic? Want a little water into wine? No trouble! How about raising the dead man Lazarus? Just say the word! — Clive Barker

There is no such thing as originality. It has all been said before, suffered before. If a person knows that, is it any wonder love becomes mechanical and death just a scene to be shunned? There is no absolute knowledge to be gained from either. Just another ride on the merry-go-round, another blurred scene of faces smiling and faces grieved. — Clive Barker

His body and his mind went about their different businesses. The former, freed from conscious instruction, breathed, rolled, sweated, and digested. The latter went dreaming. — Clive Barker

I'm a great dog fanatic. My own dog died a little while ago and I take it very personally when things die - it's a major offence. — Clive Barker

Angels have very nasty tempers. Especially when they’re feeling righteous. — Clive Barker

Whatever capacity she possesses to supernaturally beguile a human soul—and she possesses many—she liked his clear-sightedness too well, to blind him that way. — Clive Barker

We're both thieves, Harvey Swick. I take time. You take lives. But in the end we're the same: both Thieves of Always. — Clive Barker

I never want to be the producer that I too often got. — Clive Barker

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. — Clive Barker

To call you excrement would be an insult to the product of my bowels. — Clive Barker

I know that I want to bring sex and horror together as I have been able to in my books. — Clive Barker

I've held a brain in my hands, which is an extraordinary experience. — Clive Barker

Always, worlds within worlds. — Clive Barker

We are the star and the darkness it peirces — Clive Barker

Mischief nodded. 'It's true,' he conceded. 'You're in the company of eight world-class thieves,' he said, not without a little touch of pride. 'Saints we are not.' But then,' said Deaux-Deaux, 'who is?' he thought on this. 'Besides saints. — Clive Barker

Funny that. We live in islands of Hours and we never seem to have time enough for anything. — Clive Barker

I'm a poet,' the young man said, 'And it's my job to remember the sadness of things. — Clive Barker

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. — Clive Barker

True joy is a profound remembering; and true grief the same. — Clive Barker

I remember when I watched 'Hellraiser' with my mother. She cried when she saw my name in the opening credits, and I had to tell her that that was the happiest she was going to be for the next two hours. — Clive Barker

And in time it will be as though men had never come to this perfect corner of the world-never called it paradise on earth, never despoiled it with their dream factories; and in the golden hush of the afternoon all that will be heard will be the flittering of dragonflies, and the murmur of hummingbirds as they pass from bower to bower, looking for a place to sup sweetness. — Clive Barker

I don't like PG-13 horror movies. I think they're a contradiction in terms. — Clive Barker

All I ever wanted to do is darken the day and brighten the night — Clive Barker

Books should make somebody look at how they feel, be honest with themselves. — Clive Barker

If you want to look like the people next door, you're probably smothering yourself into your dreams. — Clive Barker

Sooner or later even the most ambitious glutton must crawl away and seek the solace of the vomitorium. — Clive Barker

By and large I think art is made by people who have discipline married to talent in sufficiently large amounts to work even if they don't feel like it. Anybody can get maudlin and decide to write poetry at 11 at night; the question is, can you do it at 8:30 on a Monday morning..? — Clive Barker

You are my beauty, my body, perfected. All I was drained off into you. When you left, my health went with you - leaving a moral morbidity I smell in my sleep. The acts I committed for the love of you. Acts I can never forget. I crawled into the bellies of the dead to fish out a little life... I have an appetite for it now. I have an unrelenting lust for death. — Clive Barker

The monsters act out our rage. They act on their worst impulses, which is appealing to a certain part of us. They get punished for it, but we've enjoyed the spectacle of their liberation. — Clive Barker

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. — Clive Barker

But I think humans are innately religious as a species, so you don't need a specific excuse for examining the perversely unholy. — Clive Barker

After all, where can the glorious, the goofy, and the god-like stand shoulder to shoulder? — Clive Barker

Journey to the end of day, Come the fire-fly, Come the moon; Say a prayer for God's good grace And sleep with lore upon your face. — Clive Barker

The sun rose like a stripper, keeping its glory well covered by cloud till it seemed there'd be no show at all. — Clive Barker

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! — Clive Barker

She's...just a girl, you know. Like most girls: something and nothing. — Clive Barker

You have to taste the sour urine before you break the jug. — Clive Barker

Well, here he was. They could save each other, the way the poets promised lovers should. He was mystery, he was darkness, he was all she had dreamed of. And if she would only free him he would service her - oh yes - until her pleasure reached that threshold that, like all thresholds, was a place where the strong grew stronger, and the weak perished. Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home. — Clive Barker

Believe me, when I say; There are no two powers That command the soul. One is God The other is the tide. -Anon From the novel Abarat — Clive Barker

Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any story springs. The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator's voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making. — Clive Barker

Flesh could not keep its glamour, nor eyes their sheen. They would go to nothing soon. But monsters are forever. — Clive Barker

Maybe the man had taken the wrong turning, but at least he'd travelled some extraordinary roads. — Clive Barker

There is no delight the equal of dread — Clive Barker

Nothing happens carelessly. We’re not brought into the world without reason, even though we may never understand the reason. An infant that lives an hour, that dies before it can lay eyes on those who made it, even that soul did not live without purpose: this is my sudden certainty. — Clive Barker

Walk with care in dark places, and do not put your faith in anyone who promises you the forgiveness of the Lord or a certain place in Paradise. — Clive Barker

‎"Magic is the first and last religion of the world. It has the power to make us whole, to open our eyes to the Dominions and return us to ourselves. Everything that isn't us is also ourselves. We're joined to everything that was, is and will be. From one end of the Imajica to another. From the tiniest mote dancing over this flame to the Godhead Itself. — Clive Barker

We always think we are right, and - search as I have - there is no evil under the sun that somebody somewhere won't argue is actually a good, no idiocy that hasn't got its perfectly serious defenders, and no tyrant, past or present - no matter how bloody - without some bunch of zealot schmucks to defend him or his reputation till the last breath in their bodies - or preferably somebody else's. — Clive Barker

being with people makes me vomit. I don't like em. I never did. — Clive Barker

Writing a book is like masturbation, and making a movie is like an orgy. — Clive Barker

She wanted nothing that he could offer her, except perhaps his absence. — Clive Barker

There are things that are more important than the news and what’s happening today. There are these archetypes which are part of the human imagination since humans were presumably imaginative. And I think that’s what [people] find touching, these eternal ideas. It’s one of the things that makes fantasy something that tends to stand the test of time because we’re reading, 50 years later, The Lord of the Rings. — Clive Barker

Life Lessons by Clive Barker

1. Clive Barker teaches us to embrace our creativity and use it to tell stories that are both imaginative and thought-provoking.
2. He also encourages us to be brave and take risks when it comes to expressing ourselves and our ideas.
3. Lastly, he reminds us to stay true to our own unique voices and never be afraid to explore the unknown.