95 Quotes by Karyn Kusama

When I reflect on the losses I've experienced, I've come to believe that those experiences were transformative, that they shaped who I am.

One of the things you hear about when studying the nature of fanaticism is that a lot of the time, people don't start as fanatics. They shift and evolve into that state. That's a process, a systematic process of losing your identity and sense of self.

It's pretty gratifying to spend so long to make your first film and then feel like it got a lot of love - that was an incredible feeling. But there's something very distorting about that much attention. It felt like such a double-edged sword.

It's freeing to be able to consistently make creative decisions and ask creative questions of the team without feeling like, 'Does this make me vulnerable to getting canned?' That's a big part of being in a studio - they can always fire you.

I think I was a pretty anxious dreamer, maybe a fundamentally lonely kid.

I love horror. It's funny, because 'The Invitation' never struck me as horror, but it's definitely that type of thriller.

Day-to-day concerns really trumped big dreams for quite a while in my life. I was so freaked out about money. And until, honestly, I was in my early thirties and made 'Girlfight,' that anxiety was a real issue: How are you going to live? How are you going to survive?

The best horror walks a line that's completely on a psychological level, not needing the typical tropes of traditional horror filmmaking, then also having to tease out those elements in a way that makes the audience feel like they know what they're in.

For me, I guess I feel like the notion of 'feel good' entertainment... I'm all for it, but I just think you really, really, really have to earn it. I'm not sure I have a lot of movies in me where I see a world that earns it.