Not knowing the thing that’s chasing you is a lot scarier than seeing it right in front of you

I've always had better luck learning things on my own. And I really love the challenge of doing it yourself and kind of being alone against the system.

For a found-footage-style movie, there's a definite advantage in using unknowns, because it helps sell the illusion that it's real. A known actor would get in the way of the suspension of disbelief.

Even when I was making the first 'Paranormal Activity,' I didn't tell anyone I was making it, not my friends or neighbors or co-workers. I just kind of found that there was nothing to gain by announcing to the world that you're doing something.

Gory stuff can be shocking but it doesn’t really scare me. I’d say the kind of stuff that gets under my skin is the unknown. You hear a knock behind a wall and you don’t know what it is. Is there something there or not?

Our lives are pretty calm. Merging on the freeway in the closest you get to risking your life. So what’s missing now is that primal emotion of being scared to death, and I think that’s why people crave thrills like roller coasters or scary movies. They give you the chance to feel this very primal emotion in a very controlled environment.

I've never owned an Apple product. I like the fact that PCs are open architecture and not locked down like Apple products. I feel that Macs are also unjustifiably overpriced.

I feel like when you do things with such a small budget, it actually makes you be more creative... and allows you to concentrate more on the story and the characters. I think that there is something about dirty, gritty and raw filmmaking that makes it feel a little more natural and makes it easier to connect with the action.

I do not buy CDs any more I usually stream Internet radio. For movies, I hardly every buy any DVDS. I have a DVR, so just record things off HBO, Showtime and so on.

Don't know if I'm a nerd - I'm more of a geek.

I don't know if I would say that I'm specifically a history buff. I do find a lot of things fascinating, especially anything that's bizarre or mysterious and unknown and we don't have all the answers for.

The less people know about 'Paranormal Activity,' the more they enjoy it.

In many places around the world, all over the U.S. and Europe there are active nuclear power plants. And for many years during the Cold War the threat of nuclear war was a permanent fear. There's always the concern that human kind is biting off more than they can chew in harnessing nuclear power.

In many cases your imagination is much more effective than what can be shown. It primes you to know something is about to happen - the anticipation and anxiety is worse than what ends up happening.

Usually I don't find gore or slasher films scary. What works for me is the slower build where you are tightening the noose around the situation until you are running out of options and then really have no idea what to do.

There is so much misinformation out there. If you give people even a little bit, it gets blown out of proportion then you have to go put out fires. So it's much easier to say, 'No comment.'

I'm pretty content with what I have, but the one thing that I don't have is something like the iPod - but PC-based. I think that would be cool.

I pay a lot of attention to box office because I understand it. TV ratings? I don't know how to interpret them, since I'm new to TV, so I'm just going to wait for somebody to tell me.