Guillermo del Toro

“Ultimately, you walk life side-by-side with death, and the Day of the Dead, curiously enough, is about life. It's an impulse that's intrinsic to the Mexican character.”

“I have a schizophrenic career. I have 'Cronos' and 'The Devil's Backbone' on one hand, and then I have 'Blade 2' and 'Mimic' on the other.”

“What is scary to me is silly to somebody else. CG isn't scary to me. It's like comedy - comedy and horror are quite similar, in that there'll always be somebody who'll say, 'I don't think that was funny.' And it's the same with things that are meant to be scary.”

“I'm having a lot of fun on Twitter, tweeting about books.”

“When I was a teenager there was no video in my country. Betamax came to Mexico very slowly.”

“Monsters are the patron saints of imperfection.”

“I see horror as part of legitimate film. I don't see it as an independent genre that has nothing to do with the rest of cinema.”

“I have a lot of artifacts - books on witchcrafts and talismans. I have a big, big collection of original occult books from the 1800s and 1700s, and some of the oldest books on apparitions and vampires. All original printings. It's not that I'm a crazy believer, I just find it to be amazing research material.”

“When you start with Super 8, you are everything. You're the DP, the sound man, the effects guy. And what I started understanding, by working for other people, is that the best type of director is someone who rose through the ranks.”

“I think love is the greatest force in the universe. It's shapeless like water. It only takes the shape of things it becomes.”

“As a craftsman, I bust my butt as much for 'Blade 2' as I do for 'Devil's Backbone.'”

“I'm a huge David Fincher fan, and to me, 'Zodiac' is a masterpiece. I re-watch that movie all the time.”

“Everything I do, I do it with the hope that people will watch it more than twice. Whether it's 'Pan's Labyrinth' or 'Pacific Rim' or the opening of 'The Simpsons,' I do it with that hope.”

“I started seeing in the monsters as a more sincere form of religion because the priests were not that great, but Frankenstein was great.”

“The movie has to have some essence where you connect with it. The reason I'm doing 'Blade 2' and not 'Alien 4' is because I connect with the universe of 'Blade.' I don't connect with the universe of 'Alien.' Besides, I already did 'Alien 4': It's called 'Mimic.'”

“I'm serious, Jim. You need to put this crap away. You walk into school on Monday talking to me, or anyone else, about the city's pesky troll problem, and you're not exactly going to get a lot of people saying, 'Gee, thanks for the warning.' It'll spread faster than mono. You think things are tough for us now? Jim, this will be the end. I'm sorry if you had a crazy nightmare. I really am. But I can't let you ruin our lives.”

“The saddest journey in the world is the one that follows a precise itinerary. Then you're not a traveler. You're a f@@king tourist.”

“In the case of 'Shape Of Water,' I want it to feel like a song. I wanted people to come out of the movie humming the movie.”

“I don't think there is life beyond death. I don't. But I do believe that we get this clarity in the last minute of our life. The titles we achieved, the honors we managed, they all vanish. You are left alone with you and your deeds and the things you didn't do.”

“I love the entire 'Constantine' mythology, the 'Dead Man' mythology, the Alex Holland 'Swamp Thing' mythology.”