Someone asked me yesterday if Dracula met Saruman and there was a fight, who would win. I just looked at this man. What an idiotic thing to say. I mean, really, it was half-witted.

We don't always get the kind of work we want, but we always have a choice of whether to do it with good grace or not.

Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff didn't like the word 'horror'. They, like I, went for the French description: 'the theatre of the fantastique'.

I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers.

The Dracula movies are probably some of the most famous and enduring ones there are and I am very grateful to them, for sure.

My favourite country is Finland because once you get to a certain point, you can drive for hours without seeing a single person. I love peace and quiet - something I don't get very often.

I have been metal all my life, only I did not know about it. The people in this album (Charlemagne) and I, share the same values.

I haven't spent my entire career playing the guy in the bad hat, although I have to say that the bad guy is frequently much more interesting than the good guy.

The thing I have always tried to do is surprise people, to present them with something they didn't expect.

I thought that people should know about the dangers of Satanism, and diabolism does exist - there's no question about it.

I was once asked what I thought was the most disquieting thing you could see on the screen and I said, "An open door".

You can be a genius, but you won't get far in life without balance.

Free will is the sensation of making a choice. The sensation is real, but the choice seems illusory. Laws of physics determine the future.

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God.

Women never really care to face the truth when their hearts are involved.

My father taught me to read music and play the piano-but not well, even though people have said that I'm a natural musician

There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause.

Believe the incredible and you can do the impossible.

Parish me no parishes.

Life is a rich strain of music, suggesting a realm too fair to be.

The book is openly a kind of spiritual autobiography, but the trick is that on any other level it's a kind of insane collage of fragments of memory.