Seth Grahame-Smith Quotations

I always say that the characters in Jane Austen's original books are rather like zombies because they live in this bubble of immense wealth and privilege and no matter what's going on around them they have a singular purpose to maintain their rank and to impress others.

I think zombies have always been an easy metaphor for hard times. Because they're this big, faceless, brainless group of evil things that will work tirelessly to destroy you and think of nothing else.

I'm a big, bombastic novelist and thrill-ride guy. I'm never going to win the National Book Award.

Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing, has no education, no money, lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another, through sheer force of will, he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.

I like my zombies slow and I like my zombies stupid.

Sometimes we see the Civil War in movies and imagine these neatly aligned rows of men with muskets, walking in line to shoot each other. In reality the things that fascinated me were how absolutely ruthless and violent so many engagements were, how much suffering and how men were not prepared.

My job on 'Dark Shadows' was to make it fun and funny, first and foremost. It can still be dark and it can still even be gory and gothic at times, but it also needed to be fun and it needed to be an experience that people would enjoy having.

I wrote one terrible manuscript after another for a decade and I guess they gradually got a little less terrible. But there were many, many unpublished short stories, abandoned screenplays and novels... a Library of Congress worth of awful literature.

I want to be judged harshly because that forces me to really sit down and focus.

I think any period in history can be adapted into interesting fiction, as long as you approach the actual history with respect.

'Pride and Prejudice' - perhaps more than any other Jane Austen book - is engrained in our literary consciousness.

It's absurd to think of 'Pride and Prejudice,' this classic, beloved book, beset with a zombie uprising. The goal is to make you suspend your disbelief enough to allow you to get lost in the story and believe what you're reading for a while.

But if you read Jane Austen, you know that she had a wicked sense of humor. Not only was she funny, but her early writing was very dark and had a gothic tone to it.

If you're Stephen King and you have a massive body of huge-selling well-respected work, you can pivot and do whatever you want. I don't have that body of work, I don't have that audience that's comfortable with me enough yet to follow my bliss with me.

There are so many stories to tell in the worlds of science fiction, the worlds of fantasy and horror that to confine yourself to even doing historical revisionist fiction, whatever you want to call it - mash-ups, gimmick lit, absurdist fiction - I don't know if I want to do that anymore.

What makes a good book and what makes a good movie are totally different things.

I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. But, I literally work all day, every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and that's not an exaggeration.

I've always enjoyed reading history, particularly presidential biographies.

I've been a lifelong horror fan, but at the same time, I would say 90 percent of my reading is biographies and nonfiction history.

If a movie has more characters than an audience can keep track of, the audience will get confused and lose interest in the story.

If you write really good material, the rest just falls into place. There's really no trick to it.

If a novelist has created vivid characters, interesting relationships, settings the reader can easily imagine, and intriguing stories, a screenwriter has loads to work with. The challenge comes with deciding what to cut and what to keep.

It was this weird confrontation of these two delicious flavors that got me consciously or subconsciously combining Lincoln and vampires as an observational in-joke with myself.

Movie characters rarely get to think out loud or talk very much about their emotions. Instead they have to, very briefly, show their feelings through their action or through dialog.

So I suggest you stick close, pay attention, and avoid breaking the Terrorverse's only commandment: Thou shall not be stupid.

Her only fault is that she lacks sense enough to avoid falling in love with such a fool as I!

Your quarrel is with God. I merely wish to offer Him the opportunity to judge you.

I wouldn't back away from what's right just because it's hard.

Any man who has seen the face of death knows better than to seek him out a second time.

I hereby resolve to kill every vampire in America.

Surely life has taught you that a thing can be both beautiful and vile.

But I am happy. And happiness, I have decided, is a noble ambition.

Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do; for I shall not have my best warrior resigned to the service of a man who is fatter than Buddha and duller than the edge of a learning sword.

Hug your children...Kiss your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters. Tell them how much you love them, every day. Because every day is the last day. Every light casts a shadow. And only the gods know when the darkness will find us.

I decided that it was more important to laugh than to eat.

‎And when this intoxication has worn away... when every desire is fulfilled and every language learned- when there are no more distant cities to explore; no classics to be studied; not another coin to be stuffed in to one's coffers- what then? One can have all the comforts of the world, but what use are they if there is no comfort in them?

My men have suffered greatly (from boredom), much blood has been shed (by mosquitoes), and I have swung my ax mightily (chopping firewood). Surely we have earned our place in the annals of history—for never has there been so little war in a war.

And I like a mouse who has taken a cat for its tutor.

We may all deserve hell, but some of us deserve it sooner than others.

Abraham," he said. "I'm pleased to see you alive, old friend." "And I to see you dead.

I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in- and I am sure my dinners are good enough for her, since she is an unmarried woman of seven-and-twenty, and as such should expect little more than a crust of bread washed down with a cup of loneliness.

The bottom half of the page had descended into a doodle of a tiny man giving the middle finger to a giant, angry eagle with razor-sharp talons. Beneath it, the caption: To Mock a Killing Bird.

I feel rather like a rabbit that has taken a fox for its pupil.

It was a sort of peace I have rarely enjoyed since. As if we were the only two souls on earth—all of nature ours to enjoy. I wondered why a creator who had dreamt such beauty would have slandered it with such evil. Such grief. Why He had not been content to leave it unspoilt. I still wonder.

It is their nature, beautiful and simple. That you would destroy such beings, Mr. Lincoln, such superior creatures, seems madness to me.” “That you speak of them with such reverence, Mr. Poe, seems madness to me.” "Can you imagine it? Can you imagine seeing the universe through such eyes? Laughing in the face of time and death—the world your Garden of Eden? Your library? Your harem?

But there are others of my kind...those who see themselves as lions among sheep. As kings--superior to man in every way. Why, then, should they be confined to darkness? Why should they fear man?

America is thataway, Mr. Lincoln," laughed Davis, pointing north. "You're in Mississippi now.

The true roll in determing to embrace or reject anything is not whether it have any evil in it but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good.

…Abe didn’t say a word. He made straight for his journal and wrote down a single sentence. One that would radically alter the course of his life, and bring a fledgeling nation to the brink of collapse.
I hereby resolve to kill every vampire in America.

He begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its cookery was owing. Briefly forgetting her manners, Mary grabbed her fork and leapt from her chair onto the table. Lydia, who was seated nearest her, grabbed her ankle before she could dive at Mr. Collins and, presumably, stab him about the head and neck for such an insult.

I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all mean are created free and equal.

There are but two types of men who desire war: those who haven’t the slightest intention of fighting it themselves, and those who haven’t the slightest idea what it is. … Any man who has seen the face of death knows better than to seek him out a second time.

I dare say she means to keep you from his attentions. Your honour demands she be slain.

The day Henry made a choice... that some men are just too interesting to die.

We pore through libraries, dissecting the classics" Henry Sturges- vampire

Of all the weapons she had commanded, Elizabeth knew the least of love; and of all the weapons in the world, love was the most dangerous.

This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of idle chatter, and pour into our wounded bosoms the soothing balm of vengeance.

My sisters and I cannot spend any substantial time searching for Wickham, as we are each commanded by His Majesty to defend Hertfordshire from all enemies until such time as we are dead, rendered lame, or married.

Elizabeth lifted her skirt, disregarding modesty, and delivered a swift kick to the creature's head.

I would much prefer their minds to be engaged in the deadly arts than clouded with dreams of marriage and fortune, as your own so clearly is!

The business of Mr. Bennett's life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennett's was to get them married.

Elizabeth sheathed her sword, knelt behind him, and strangled him to death with his own large bowel.

Some people say "if we split up,we can cover more ground"-with blood

No ninjas! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without any ninjas! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your safety.

An accomplished woman is one who has a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages; she must be well trained in the fighting styles of the Kyoto masters and the modern tactics and weaponry of Europe.

Father may have been wanting in some things, but here he was masterful. Night upon night, I marveled at his power to hold listeners in rapt attention. He could tell a story with such detail, such flourish, that afterwards a man could swear it had been his own memory, and not a tale at all.

Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger of falling in love, and were it not for his considerable skill in the deadly arts, that he should be in danger of being bested by hers--for never had he seen a lady more gifted in the ways of vanquishing the undead.

Living men are bound by time... Thus, their lives have an urgency. This gives them ambition. Makes them choose those things that are most important, cling more tightly to that which they hold dear. Their lives have seasons, and rites of passage, and consequences. And ultimately, an end. But what of a life with no urgency? What then of ambition? What then of love?

Miss Bennet, I am quite aware of your superior talent for cutting down the Lord's forsaken flock. I merely mean to spare your gown.' Thank you,' said Elizabeth, composing herself, 'but I should rather my gown be soiled than my honor.

Thank you, sir, but I am perfectly content being the bride of death.

All I ask is that my final months be happy ones, and that I be permitted a husband who will see to my proper Christian beheading and burial.

Of all the weapons in the world, love is the most dangerous.

put the car in "d" set the compass to "n" and get the "f"out of there

I fear that a life of death has made me numb to both.

Pride and Prejudice' - perhaps more than any other Jane Austen book - is engrained in our literary consciousness.

On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in the way his trousers cling to those most English parts of him.

So I grew up in a very book-friendly environment and my education as a writer was reading. I think that's the best education. Reading, and taking from the people I admired.

Some novels present a story form many points of view. Most movies tell only one person's side of the story. Sometime it's easy to use the strongest point of view, or find the character with the most dramatic experience. It depends on which themes the scriptwriter wants to explore.

The more precious His gift, the more anxious God for its return.

My day job is making TV shows.

Without death,' he answered, 'life is meaningless. It is a story that can never be told. A song that can never be sung. For how would one finish it?

However, it has long been said that "my enemy's enemy is my friend.

Most men have no purpose but to exist, Abraham; to pass quietly through history as minor characters upon a stage they cannot even see

So long as this country is cursed with slavery, so too will it be cursed with vampires.

I nearly broke out laughing when the wrteched soothsayer warned Caesar: "Beware the Ides of April." I thought it a miracle (and a relief) that no one in the udience had snickered or yelled out a correction. How could such an error be made by an actor? Had my ears deceived me?

It was a really strange and unique sort of process for me to adapt my own book.

Contrary to his infallibly "honest" image, Abe wasn't above lying so long as it served a noble purpose.

Real power comes not from hate, but from truth.