Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barkeris an English writer, film director, and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works, and his fiction has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser and Candyman series. He was the Executive Producer of the film Gods and Monsters...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 October 1952
I certainly knew from an early age... how to tell stories; how to create pictures in other people's heads.
The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to 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.
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.
I was cured in my new infamy of all the tired wisdom of age. I would never weary into that tired state again---I swore to myself, I would always be this raw, wet child hereafter...
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.
Though I respect hugely the effort and the care and the beauty of games, I want to be working with people who want to create the 'War & Peace' of games, the 'Citizen Kane' of games, and not just be warming up George Romero.
There's a lot of art and comics and movies being paid homage to by game designers.
I'm not the expert on the great gameplay. I come in for the character design, monsters, atmosphere. I'm not the technician.
I've got deeper journeys to take. Metaphysical journeys. Journeys to see Christ. Shaman journeys. It's what I've been elected by God to do.
Some people think that horror films are some sort of second class filmmaking, and the only way to bypass that thinking is being proud of the fact that we do it.
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.
I don't feel there's any reason to apologise for having a wicked imagination. I think it's important as a maker of fantasy and of horror.
Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work.
Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter, woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with time become a world.