George A. Romero Quotations

If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart.

I can't really make fun of zombies. They're not liars. They're not cheats.

My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I'm pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.

I also have always liked the monster within idea. I like the zombies being us. Zombies are the blue-collar monsters.

For a Catholic kid in parochial school, the only way to survive the beatings - by classmates, not the nuns - was to be the funny guy.

If one horror film hits, everyone says, 'Let's go make a horror film.' It's the genre that never dies.

A zombie film is not fun without a bunch of stupid people running around and observing how they fail to handle the situation.

My zombies will never take over the world because I need the humans. The humans are the ones I dislike the most, and they're where the trouble really lies.

I'll never get sick of zombies. I just get sick of producers.

I sympathize with the zombies and am not even sure they are villains. To me they are this earth-changing thing. God or the devil changed the rules, and dead people are not staying dead.

Zombies are always moving fast in video games. It makes sense if you think about it. Those games are all about hand-eye coordination and how quickly can you get them before they get you.

I grew up on the old EC comic books before the Comics Code in North American and with all sort of good-natured fun. I never had nightmares I think because all of the old horror stuff that I was exposed to was well meaning in a certain sense.

I always thought of the zombies as being about revolution, one generation consuming the next.

I expect a zombie to show up on 'Sesame Street' soon, teaching kids to count.

People called '28 Days' and '28 Weeks' zombie movies, and they're not! It's some sort of virus; they're not dead.

I keep a little notebook of things that I can do to the zombies that might be silly and fun.

I go to conventions and universities and talk to young filmmakers and everybody's making a zombie movie! It's because it's easy to get the neighbors to come out, put some ketchup on them.

Ever since 'Lassie' and 'Old Yeller', I won't watch animal movies. Animals in movies always die.

I like guys who are understandable and good guys who are flawed.

When I was old enough to go to movies alone, I got to see 'Frankenstein' and 'Dracula' on the big screen. I just fell in love with them.

On the other side of that coin, and far outweighing it, is the fact that I've been able to use genre of Fantasy/Horror and express my opinion, talk a little about society, do a little bit of satire and that's been great, man. A lot of people don't have that platform.

I really liked the helicopter pilot in 'Dawn of the Dead', when he gets bitten and comes out of the elevator. That guy was amazing. He did this incredible walk that we didn't even know about until we started shooting.

I thought Godzilla was a mess, the monster had no character and the humans didn't either. They forgot to make the movie that went along with all these wonderful effects.

What the Internet's value is that you have access to information but you also have access to every lunatic that's out there that wants to throw up a blog.

There are so many factors when you think of your own films. You think of the people you worked on it with, and somehow forget the movie. You can't forgive the movie for a long time. It takes a few years to look at it with any objectivity and forgive its flaws.

As great as Ed is, the wisdom out here is that he can't carry a movie. They'll pay him $3 million to be the second banana in Julia Roberts things. But they won't put up $3 million for an Ed Harris movie.

First of all, in the old days, if you wanted to show someone getting shot on film, all you could do was place an effect in the original take. And if you wanted to brighten somebody's face and leave the rest of the room dark, that was a very expensive process.

Horror will always be there, it always comes back, it's a familiar genre that some people, not everyone - it's sort of the cinema anchovies. You either like it or you don't.

Somehow I've been able to keep standing and stay in my little corner and do my little stuff and I'm not particularly affected by trends or I'm not dying to make a 3D movie or anything like that. I'm just sort of happy to still be around.

I grew up on DC Comics, moral tales where the bad guys got their comeuppance. To me the gory panels or grotesque stuff just made me chuckle.

The most realistic blood I've seen is when Marlon Brando gets beat up in On The Waterfront.

The Thing from Another World' was the first movie that really scared me.

I don't like the new trends in horror. All this torture stuff seems really mean-spirited. People have forgotten how to laugh, and I don't see anybody who's using it as allegory.

As a filmmaker you get typecast just as much as an actor does, so I'm trapped in a genre that I love, but I'm trapped in it!

I'm like my zombies. I won't stay dead!

Anybody who tunes into Rush Limabaugh already knows what he's going to say and is already inclined to agree. So it winds up creating tribes.

I think you're only free if you're working on very low or huge money.

The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal, the British director.

The two great things about computer CG stuff are I can now do gags I would never have dreamed of in the old day.

I really believe that you could do horror very inexpensively. I don't think it has anything to do with the effects, the effects are not the most important parts.

I don't think you need to spend $40 million to be creepy. The best horror films are the ones that are much less endowed.

It would be very hard to write a serious drama and say some of these things. You can be much more abstract and allusive with horror, and it's very forgiving to the author. You don't necessarily have to take an absolutely positive position. You can just write whatever.

Everybody knows the rules, even though some break those rules.

I don't want a zombie society. I don't want to go that far.

Zombies are the real lower-class citizens of the monster world and that's why l like them.

I've gotten letters, but mostly from Bible-belt types who say, you must be Satan! They come right out and call me Satan and hope that I'm damned to hell.

Collaborate, don't dictate. Every department head has something to offer. Listen and gratefully accept their offerings. They're moviemakers, too.

You can fall on your face easily if you go off in a certain direction. The Birds is a good example, some people are really phobic about birds flying over their heads, and some don't care. So, it's a personal thing.

Zombies are the blue-collar monsters

Nothings ever real until its real.

My stuff is my stuff. I do it for my own reasons, using my own peculiar set of guidelines. I'm not a student of the genre. I don't care what anybody else does.

Collaborate, don't dictate.

Just because I'm showing somebody being disemboweled doesn't mean that I have to get heavy and put a message behind it.

Movies are about escape.

When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.

My opinion of a good zombie walk is to loll your head as if it's a little too heavy and the muscles have begun to atrophy.

I don't think you need to spend $40 million to be creepy. The best horror films are the ones that are much less endowed.

As a filmmaker, I love the medium. I have a great affection for it and I've been lucky enough to do all different kinds of films. The greatest part of the success I've had comes from horror. I love the idea of mixing humor and horror and to me, it's all a giggle.

I've always felt that the real horror is next door to us, that the scariest monsters are our neighbors.

It is amazing to me how deeply into the popular culture the creature has become. There are zombie walks in every major city. I live in Toronto, and last year 3,000 people came out dressed as zombies.... I do not get it. Maybe it's an easy costume: Splash some ketchup on and rip up your jeans -- although most people already have torn jeans -- and you're done.