I tried to make every bit of it as creepy as I could. And I had the same response you do. I feel the same way. The hospital scenes, that procedure was so real. – William Peter Blatty
I’ve been campaigning like anything for restoring these changes. For 27 years. I wrote a book about it, well, a portion of the book was devoted to these scenes and why they should have been in the movie. – William Peter Blatty
I’d sold the book first. Actually to a paperback publisher. I had nothing. I just had the idea. – William Peter Blatty
I’m not aware that I was consciously influenced by any director, though these things often happen unnoticed, submerged in the unconscious. – William Peter Blatty
And the sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy. The Exorcist not only ended that career, it expunged all memory of its existence. – William Peter Blatty
Bantam Press. And they commissioned me to write it. And when that was completed, they sold it to Harper and Row. And then I put it out to every movie studio in town. And they all turned it down. – William Peter Blatty
I have never read horror, nor do I consider The Exorcist to be such, but rather as a suspenseful supernatural detective story, or paranormal police procedural. – William Peter Blatty
Horror does not interest me, and so I know little of its practicioners, old or current. – William Peter Blatty
I get cassettes near Academy Award time of every movie that’s made that thinks it has some kind of chance for a nomination – that’s when I watch my movies. – William Peter Blatty
Well, the research into it affected me. And the novel, it very much strengthened my faith. – William Peter Blatty
