"I like to address the fears of my culture. I believe it`s good to face the enemy, for the enemy is fear."
"A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?"
"The first monster that an audience has to be scared of is the filmmaker. They have to feel in the presence of someone not confined by the normal rules of propriety and decency."
"If you think it, the camera will see it."
"The experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. That is a remarkable thing, if you scream and everyone else in the audience screams, you realize that your fears are not just within yourself, they're in other people as well, and that's strangely releasing."
— Exclusive Interview: Wes Craven Talks Yeah Tv, Nightmare On Elm Street And His Future". Interview with Eric Walkuski,
"I'm sorry to the countless people whose lives I've cut short. The characters who've become unwilling sacrifices to my art: The buxom babysitters. The doubting cops. The overbearing parents and well-intentioned boyfriends. Teens with their whole lives ahead of them. Decent, hardworking adults. All sent to an early grave in the name of box-office gold."
— The introduction he wrote for How to Survive a Horror Movie
