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When you have no money, you need invention.

John Carpenter

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John Carpenter
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 16
Actor
Composer
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Film Score Composer
Screenwriter
Writer
Carthage
New York
John Howard Carpenter
Invention
Money
Need
Needs

More quotes by John Carpenter

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I can play just about any keyboard but I can't read or write a note.
John Carpenter
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I have two different categories of favorite films. One is the emotional favorites, which means these are generally films that I saw when I was a kid anything you see in your formative years is more powerful, because it really stays with you forever. The second category is films that I saw while I was learning the craft of motion pictures.
John Carpenter
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I've gone through various periods with superheroes. They work in the right hands, but they don't work in other hands. It's tricky. But any movie is tricky. It's impossible to say, 'This is what you do in any situation.
John Carpenter
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As a filmmaker, it's about surviving and lasting. So many talented people that I've known in my life - directors and writers - just haven't made it and haven't had a chance.
John Carpenter
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Way back in the '70s, I was approached to talk about the story I'd write for a Spider-Man movie. They also talked to me about Batman. I had to think about it, but that was way, way back when.
John Carpenter
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We've got the prettiest girls in the world here in Los Angeles and there's a great music scene. And I learned what I learned about cinema here in Los Angeles so it's always been really important to me as a city to live in and I love making movies about it.
John Carpenter
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Child pornography is taboo. There are really no such things as snuff films. That's a legend. But movies are like pieces of dreams, and we don't need to go into those dreams. Those dreams are beyond. Child pornography - it's horrible. Human suffering is a horrible thing in real life.
John Carpenter
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I'm pretty happy with who I am. I like myself and what I'm doing. I don't need to be the world's greatest director or the most famous -- or the richest. I don't need to make a whole lot of great films. I can do my job and I can do it pretty well. This is the realization I've come to, later in life. It's called growing up.
John Carpenter
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It [horror genre] never dies. It just keeps getting re­invented and it always will. Horror is a universal language we're all afraid. We're born afraid, we're all afraid of things: death, disfigurement, loss of a loved one. Everything that I'm afraid of, you're afraid of and vice versa. So everybody feels fear and suspense.
John Carpenter
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We all question our sanity. Everyone has had an experience of loss of control of something.
John Carpenter
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Directing is all about storytelling. It's not about equipment, or anything else.
John Carpenter
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From early on, when synthesizers were first introduced into music, I liked the idea that you could get a big sound with them - electronic, but like an orchestra. And I could play it all myself. That was exciting.
John Carpenter
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To survive you have to withstand the changes in the business. This business has gone through so many changes since I was young and now it is on to something else. It is all weird today, for me, because I am from the old times. You just have to keep adapting. Isn't that Darwinism? The creature that adapts to its environment survives.
John Carpenter
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There's nothing better than being in an asylum, if you're going to have a bunch of crazy people in an asylum, and they're all beautiful Hollywood actresses.
John Carpenter
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It's a very good time for horror. This business certainly has changed, but there's still room for serious horror films. Look at 28 Days Later, that's not a tongue-in-cheek picture.
John Carpenter
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One of my heroes is a composer named James Bernard, and oh my God... I can still listen to his music today and be stirred and moved by it. But I think that you fall in love with... Well, again, when you're young, it really is more powerful. Much more terrifying.
John Carpenter
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Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.
John Carpenter
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Fears are all psychological. Being afraid of death, loss of a loved one and disfigurement are all powered by your mind, and that's very powerful stuff.
John Carpenter
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Horror stories have always worked on film. It's where they work. That's where vampires and ghosts and UFOs are real. They're not particularly real in life, but they're real on the screen. It's the communal aspect of movie-watching.
John Carpenter
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Horror found me. I got into the movie business to make westerns.
John Carpenter