I didn't want to be known as a man who only made horror films. I made some - very few.

In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment.

You can learn Elvish, if you want. It's a language like Italian and English. You can learn to read it, you can learn to write it, and you can learn to speak it.

I thought that people should know about the dangers of Satanism, and diabolism does exist - there's no question about it.

I've done a lot of films that have become iconic, not necessarily because of me.

I've seen many men die right in front of me - so many in fact that I've become almost hardened to it. Having seen the worst that human beings can do to each other, the results of torture, mutilation and seeing someone blown to pieces by a bomb, you develop a kind of shell. But you had to. You had to. Otherwise, we would never have won.

When the Second World War finished, I was 23 and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. Seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much.