Guillermo Del Toro quotes

The way I love monsters is a Mexican way of loving monsters, which is that I am not judgmental. The Anglo way of seeing things is that monsters are exceptional and bad, and people are good. But in my movies, creatures are taken for granted.

I have a lot of artifacts - books on witchcrafts and talismans. I have a big, big collection of original occult books from the 1800s and 1700s, and some of the oldest books on apparitions and vampires. All original printings. It's not that I'm a crazy believer, I just find it to be amazing research material.

In Mexico, you're close to death all the time.

There is art and beauty and power in the primal images of fantasy.

There is art and beauty and power in the primal images of fantasy.

You cannot dictate what people find funny, what people find attractive, or what people find scary. There is not a norm.

To me, art and storytelling serve primal, spiritual functions in my daily life. Whether I'm telling a bedtime story to my kids or trying to mount a movie or write a short story or a novel, I take it very seriously.

I had nightmares as a kid. As an adult, I have very prosaic dreams.

More and more, as I grow older, I find myself looking for inspiration in painting, illustration, videogames, and old movies.

There is art and beauty and power in the primal images of fantasy.

I'm a book guy first, and my education came from two encyclopedias. One was an encyclopedia of health, so I became morbidly obsessed with anatomy, and I thought I had trichinosis, an aneurism, jaundice! And then an encyclopedia of art.

There is beauty and humility in imperfection.

For me, real life is hard work. Making movies is like a vacation for my soul.

There is a heavy Mexican Catholic streak in my movies, and a huge Mexican sense of melodrama. Everything is overwrought, and there's a sense of acceptance of the fantastic in my films, which is innately Mexican. So when people ask, 'How can you define the Mexican-ness of your films?' I go, 'How can I not?' It's all I am.

For me, real life is hard work. Making movies is like a vacation for my soul.

I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue.

Everything I do, I do it with the hope that people will watch it more than twice. Whether it's 'Pan's Labyrinth' or 'Pacific Rim' or the opening of 'The Simpsons,' I do it with that hope.

I think when we wake up in the morning, we can choose between fear and love. Every morning. And every morning, if you choose one, that doesn't define you until the end... The way you end your story is important. It's important that we choose love over fear, because love is the answer.

You cannot convince a Buddhist to become a Protestant any more than you can convince a person who embraces realism as the highest form of art that fantasy is an equally important manifestation. It's impossible.