I like going into a school matinee. I like to be behind the stage because there's a spy-hole and what you see is the best moment in all theatre.

For I see that then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is lost forever.

I have sat here at my desk, day after day, night after night, a blank sheet of paper before me, unable to lift my pen, trembling and weeping too.

Ghost stories ... tell us about things that lie hidden within all of us, and which lurk outside all around us.

I had not yet learned that we make our own destiny, it springs from within us. It is not the outward events but what we allow ourselves to make of them that count.

I'm really quite hard to scare so it was about mining times when I have jumped, and what creeps me out.

Some people make tunes, but it is lines that run like moving messages through my head. Whatever else I am saying and doing often has no bearing on this inner, verbal life.

The key word for my book The Woman in Black is unsettling... because you're not terrified all of the time or even frightened, but you're unsettled and once you're unsettled, then the door's open.

A book which is left on a shelf is a dead thing but it is also a chrysalis, an inanimate object packed with the potential to burst into new life.

I collect Victorian automata and coming across them in the dark does give you a little shudder.

I had changed, and gone on changing, but I did not fully remember how it had begun, or understand why.

People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.

Trust no Future howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead!

There's something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

Every new fad or fashion at once has its denouncers from the pulpit, platform, professor's chair.

I'm not a fan of justifying bad behavior or justifying why people are the way they are. I think that's a cop out. I don't have a lot of empathy for that.

irony is an indispensable ingredient of the critical vision; it is the safest antidote to sentimental decay.

I must say, I feel the reception of my work is none of my business.

Eating is one of the great beauties in life. One of my favorite recreations... eating with friends, the service, the ambience.

For eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.

I don't want to end my career and then start something. I like to do something while my career is still hot and I've always enjoyed designing.