Top 100 Eli Roth Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Natural disasters are terrifying – that loss of control, this feeling that something is just going to randomly end your life for absolutely no reason is terrifying. But, what scares me is the human reaction to it and how people behave when the rules of civility and society are obliterated.”

— Eli Roth

2. “I have so many different projects, I hear voices in my head – the characters talking all at once – and I have to write to make them stop.”

— Eli Roth

3. “I think characters are most terrifying when they’re relatable. It’s best when your most horrible characters make sense, and are believable. That’s when a movie is most terrifying.”

— Eli Roth

4. “One of the great elements of the supernatural is having that mystery and letting people’s imaginations run wild with it.”

— Eli Roth

5. “I think in life we get very caught up in the minutia and, unfortunately, it generally takes some sort of tragedy in your life to put things in perspective.”

— Eli Roth

6. “When I was 22, I had this horrible psoriasis outbreak. It was all over my legs, I couldn’t walk because my legs were cracked and bleeding. Weird things like that can happen to your body.”

— Eli Roth

7. “I think that many people are ashamed when they feel afraid. There’s this thing in our society that you’re not allowed to feel scared. You have to be a man and put on a brave face, but we all have fears.”

— Eli Roth

8. “Sometimes you have this tragedy which turns into an incredible opportunity.”

— Eli Roth

9. “There’s something very scary about exposing yourself on camera, knowing that you’re going to be put on thousands of screens around the world for everyone to judge, but there’s also something very thrilling and exciting about it.”

— Eli Roth

10. “If you don’t want to be scared in a horror film, don’t close your eyes. Close your ears.”

— Eli Roth

11. “I have no tattoos. There’s nothing I’ve even been that into to get a tattoo of it.”

— Eli Roth

12. “I like movies like Mother’s Day, where you watch it, and you’ve liked it for years as a horror movie.”

— Eli Roth

13. “Las Vegas is a 24-hour city. It never stops.”

— Eli Roth

14. “I want an iPhone 5, someone said something nasty on twitter, or my boyfriend isn’t texting me back, like whatever the thing is that seems so major in your life, when a real disaster hits you suddenly strips it all away and you see what’s really important and who you really are.”

— Eli Roth

15. “My phobias worsen as I get older. I’m scared of flying, driving. I’m terrified of sharks. I’m a germaphobe. But I try to face my fears; I do. Well, most of them.”

— Eli Roth

16. “Lucio Fulci is such a massively underrated director. Everyone knows him as the Godfather of Gore.”

— Eli Roth

17. “With Hostel II I thought I had a very, very strong female audience so I’m going to make a movie that’s going to appeal to them. The guys will love it, they’ll have their moments. But there’ll be a lot more male nudity in this one. I have a lot of sausage in this one!”

— Eli Roth

18. “Horror movies are the best date movies. There’s no wondering, ‘When do I put my arm around her?’”

— Eli Roth

19. “I want a movie that 30 years from now, people can look back and see it as a reflection of where the culture was at – as a barometer of the culture.”

— Eli Roth

20. “Possession and exorcism is something that’s in every religion and every culture. It’s a real primal fear: Is the body a vessel for our spirits? What happens if something else takes over it? Where does the spirit go?”

— Eli Roth

21. “I have control issues. For sure, no question.”

— Eli Roth

22. “I don’t want people to feel: “Why am I watching this? It’s sick and sadistic.” I want people to watch and think it’s scary but they can’t wait to see what happens next. I also wanted to make a movie that was watchable.”

— Eli Roth

23. “For a long time, I had a crazy girl dating habit.”

— Eli Roth

24. “I’m from Boston, and in Boston, you are born with a baseball bat in your hand. And actually, most of the bats in Massachusetts are used off the field instead of on the field, and we all had baseball bats in our cars in high school.”

— Eli Roth

25. “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that there’s no such thing as evil; it’s all in your point of view. To one group a suicide bomber is the antichrist and to one he’s a hero.”

— Eli Roth

26. “There’s fear in everything, but we can’t just succumb to that. We have to suppress it, so we get used to suppressing fear to make it through the our day. Otherwise, we’d become paralyzed by them.”

— Eli Roth

27. “All the copycat movies were always PG-13 and people said: “Nobody wants violence.””

— Eli Roth

28. “I always say that no matter what the torture is, or the tool is, first of all it’s nothing worse than what’s been done already and that wasn’t done by the church and the state for over a period of 250 years during the European witch trials.”

— Eli Roth

29. “I always feel that there’s no violence in a movie – it’s not real, it’s a magic trick. Nobody is really dying. In fact, the people that die in my movies have gone on to become extremely successful!”

— Eli Roth

30. “Everyone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.”

— Eli Roth

31. “I was listening to music to kind of pump myself up and get psyched up, like I was listening to Iron Maiden and Misfits and Dead Kennedys, and it was like my ‘80s Massachusetts parking-lot heavy metal and Guns N’ Roses.”

— Eli Roth

32. “If I don’t come home covered head to toe in fake blood then I haven’t done my job as a horror director.”

— Eli Roth

33. “If you are having fun on the set, you are not getting things done.”

— Eli Roth

34. “The world is changing. Social media is a way to sell movies and to build a fan base. The truth is that you have followers because they know you are into it and you’re funny and you like it. I think it’s great.”

— Eli Roth

35. “Look at comic books. It used to be something that only geeks were into. And now it’s everywhere.”

— Eli Roth

36. “You’d be lucky to get tortured to death in one of my films. It’s the best thing that could happen to your career. But I’m very aware that as soon as you put women in this situation, all of a sudden people are like: “Wow, well wait a second!” Immediately, people become very sensitive to it.”

— Eli Roth

37. “I love movies that are just straight-up exploitation, but the ones that endure and the ones that last are the ones where the filmmakers put in that extra level of thought; after 25 years you put them on in front of an audience, and they’ll respond to it and enjoy it.”

— Eli Roth

38. “We live in an age now where so many people watch movies based on what Netflix recommends. It learns your taste and they really understand viewer habits.”

— Eli Roth

39. “I’m not interested in going after a part. I think if someone wants me for a part and approaches me then I’ll take it on a case-by-case basis and see what that part is.”

— Eli Roth

40. “Twitter is wonderful. You can kill rumours instantly.”

— Eli Roth

41. “I’ll direct any movie starring a monkey or the Olsen Twins. Preferably both.”

— Eli Roth

42. “You have to write scenes and design scenes that are scary and horrific, but that are also watchable. I didn’t want people to just feel like they got punched in the stomach.”

— Eli Roth

43. “My parents love it! They’re on set. They make cameos in the movie. My father is a psycho-analyst and a professor at Harvard and he told me how many of the other professors at Harvard have gone and seen it. They love Hostel and they love the thought behind it.”

— Eli Roth

44. “Quentin Tarantino assistant called me and said: “I have good news and bad news. The good news is you got the part, the bad news is you have to do it.” I was like: “Oh Jesus, when am I supposed to do this?” I was prepping Hostel.”

— Eli Roth

45. “I think in the late ’80s and early ’90s horror was dead.”

— Eli Roth

46. “I can think of endless horrible things to do to people!”

— Eli Roth

47. “One of the great joys of life, now that you can afford a nice suit, is getting one for free. That’s why I like to do press tours – I always say making movies is just an excuse to get free clothing.”

— Eli Roth

48. “What’s important for me is staying healthy.”

— Eli Roth

49. “The film, ‘Aftershock,’ for me is really about how the minor problems in life that we think are so major ultimately mean nothing when a tragedy happens, when a real problem happens.”

— Eli Roth

50. “As a kid, I was the neighbourhood baby-sitter – very responsible, always in charge.”

— Eli Roth