Peter Straub Quotes

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I know this doesn't make sense, but if we ever did this before, exactly this, with you sitting over there and me here, in this same room, well, wasn't the food even better? I mean, a lot better?
Peter Straub Quotes: I know this doesn't make
Ideally, I would create a book so interdependent and self-sustaining in its parts, so wondrously connected word by word and paragraph by paragraph, so charged with the joy of language, that it would actually float three or four inches above any table where you try to set it down.
Peter Straub Quotes: Ideally, I would create a
There have been times when I reread - or at least leafed through - something because I'd sent a copy to a friend, and what usually happened was that I noticed dozens and dozens of clumsy phrases I wished I could rewrite.
Peter Straub Quotes: There have been times when
Everything here is a lie," Rose said. "Just because you saw it doesn't mean it really happened." Tom nodded. He was curiously reluctant to take up this hope she offered. If he reached out, it might bite his hand.
Peter Straub Quotes: Everything here is a lie,
Instead, I was interested in what I guess I could call narrative indeterminacy, in questioning the apparent, taken-for-granted authority of any particular representation of the events in question.
Peter Straub Quotes: Instead, I was interested in
When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.
Peter Straub Quotes: When, in the third book,
He did not recognize himself either. He was a totally new being, bald, covered with grease and blood, pink and blue eyed: he was his own baby ... He was a great fat chuckling baby, and he shat and peed in his filthy trousers and kept driving.
Peter Straub Quotes: He did not recognize himself
Wolves and those who see them are shot on sight.
Peter Straub Quotes: Wolves and those who see
The opposite of love is evil.

You stupid human beings, the whole thing is right in front of you, but on you go, debating whether evil is internal or external, inherent in everyone or created by circumstance...The world is not divided into two. You have evil within you, you contain evil, that's the basic idea. When you open the door, what do you get, the lady or the tiger? Whoops, sorry, you get both, because the lady is the tiger.

Doity Toid to the Eel
Peter Straub Quotes: The opposite of love is
But you do not reject the supernatural out of hand,' Sears said. 'I don't know if I do or do not,' I said. 'Like most people.
Peter Straub Quotes: But you do not reject
The world is full of ghosts, and some of them are still people.
Peter Straub Quotes: The world is full of
Holy shit! That's a vampire. He's writing a vampire novel. And I thought, this is the most tired cliche that anybody could dredge up out of the genre, and he just made it jump.
Peter Straub Quotes: Holy shit! That's a vampire.
The face was no longer bone, but animal - the face of a white wolf. "I forbid you nothing. Nothing," uttered the awful face. "You may go anywhere - you may open any door. But, little bird, remember that you must be prepared to accept whatever you find." The long jaws spread in a smile filled with teeth.
Peter Straub Quotes: The face was no longer
But this story ends when you open the door. It doesn't matter if you managed to guess which room is mine, which door I closed behind me. You put your hand on the door handle, you knock, it's all over. End of story. By choosing one, you chose the other, too. Do you understand why? Those two consequences are joined at the hip, they're Siamese twins. Even if you picked the door with the lady behind it - all questions answered, all explanations given, your life solved for you - it's still true that you gave the tiger permission to jump. You gave your assent to catastrophe, you invited tragedy and horror to walk right in. You got lucky, that's all. Mallon
Peter Straub Quotes: But this story ends when
A lyrical, brave and complex novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off.
Peter Straub Quotes: A lyrical, brave and complex
I write longer sentences than most of the others, maybe because I probably like Henry James more than they do.
Peter Straub Quotes: I write longer sentences than
In violence there is often the quality of yearning - the yearning for completion. For closure. For that which is absent and would if present bring to fulfillment. For the body without which the wing is a useless frozen ornament. ("A Short Guide To The City")
Peter Straub Quotes: In violence there is often
I'm being haunted," she blurted out.
"My dear," he cooed. "Turn yourself into a tourist attraction and charge admission.
Peter Straub Quotes: I'm being haunted,
She tasted what she had said and found it sour enough to be accurate.
Peter Straub Quotes: She tasted what she had
A long time ago, when we all lived in the forest and none of us lived anywhere else,
Peter Straub Quotes: A long time ago, when
She thought it was too bad it didn't work the other way around, so you could get braver and smarter as you move up in years. But
Peter Straub Quotes: She thought it was too
An average working day begins at 8 or 9 am, includes an hour for lunch, and ends at 5 or 6 pm.
Peter Straub Quotes: An average working day begins
It's a good thing you write fiction. If you had to describe the real world, nobody would recognize it.
Peter Straub Quotes: It's a good thing you
Most people will tell you growing up means you stop believing in Halloween things - I'm telling you the reverse. You start to grow up when you understand that the stuff that scares you is part of the air you breathe.
Peter Straub Quotes: Most people will tell you
I believe I encountered death, which was a bit too much for a seven-year-old.
Peter Straub Quotes: I believe I encountered death,
It didn't have a real ending. It just slipped backward when other things happened.
Peter Straub Quotes: It didn't have a real
Whatever his circumstances and surroundings, it was only a dead imagination that could call him a failure.
Peter Straub Quotes: Whatever his circumstances and surroundings,
My first real breakthrough collided with the last months of Callaghan's Labour government, which had every intention of enjoying my success as much as I did.
Peter Straub Quotes: My first real breakthrough collided
Privilege encased them, surrounded them like armor. In the cast of their faces was the assumption that they would never have to take anything very seriously. For the first time in my life I saw the truth in the old proposition that the rich were better-looking.
Peter Straub Quotes: Privilege encased them, surrounded them
Many fiction writers eventually want to feel that their work forms a single, unified entity.
Peter Straub Quotes: Many fiction writers eventually want
Nobody is surprised that women writers accurately represent male characters over and over again, no doubt because everybody knows that women understand men much better than vice-versa.
Peter Straub Quotes: Nobody is surprised that women
The day was a long bolt of gray cloth; endless.
Peter Straub Quotes: The day was a long
(Another writer once asked me why I wrote about "nebbishes." I told him I wanted to write about "the common man.") Sometimes I even
Peter Straub Quotes: (Another writer once asked me
What we do here is physiologically impossible. So we must train the body to accept the impossible, and then it will become possible.
Peter Straub Quotes: What we do here is
I generally wade in blind and trust to fate and instinct to see me through.
Peter Straub Quotes: I generally wade in blind
The mind was a trap
it was a cage that slammed down over you.
Peter Straub Quotes: The mind was a trap<br>it
Fear and I were old buddies, despite my best efforts to the contrary.
Peter Straub Quotes: Fear and I were old
On gym days, I don't get to my desk until 4 in the afternoon, and everything except bedtime and the appointment with the liquid narcotic is pushed back a bit.
Peter Straub Quotes: On gym days, I don't
Facing a wall when you write really aids your concentration.
Peter Straub Quotes: Facing a wall when you
It struck me that his innate elegance, the product of his character & bearing much more than of the handsome suit and the suede shoes, had been paid for by the surviving of a thousand unimaginable difficulties, each painful to a varying degree. Then I realized that what I meant by elegance was really dignity, that for the first time I had recognized actual dignity in another human being, and that dignity was nothing like the self-congratulatory superiority people usually mistook for it.
Peter Straub Quotes: It struck me that his
Students set up desks where you could sign petitions for legalizing marijuana or declare yourself in favor of homosexuality and the protection of whales; students thronged by.
Peter Straub Quotes: Students set up desks where
As soon as I started writing Julia, by which I mean while writing its first sentence, I felt a sudden, reassuring charge of excitement. I knew it was going to work.
Peter Straub Quotes: As soon as I started
It is as though some old part of yourself wakes up in you, terrified, useless in the life you have, its skills and habits destructive but intact, and what is left of the present you, the person you have become, wilts and shrivels in sadness or despair: the person you have become is only a thin shell over this other, more electric and endangered self. The strongest, the least digested parts of your experience can rise up and put you back where you were when they occurred; all the rest of you stands back and weeps.
Peter Straub Quotes: It is as though some
What would be frightening about me jumping out of the bush wearing a pig mask is not the sudden surprise, not me, and not the pig mask, but that the ordinary world had split open for a moment to reveal some possibility never previously considered.
Peter Straub Quotes: What would be frightening about
Adventure is a nameless joy
Peter Straub Quotes: Adventure is a nameless joy
It is not believed that a people capable of inventing the genre of "oral painting" could have spawned the viaduct killer, and in any case no ghetto resident is permitted access to any other area of the city. ("A Short Guide To The City")
Peter Straub Quotes: It is not believed that
Sometimes, it seems like sighted people can hardly see anything.
Peter Straub Quotes: Sometimes, it seems like sighted
I instantly chucked my academic ambitions and began writing fiction full-time.
Peter Straub Quotes: I instantly chucked my academic
Everyone wants to get better as they go along, but sometimes it's all you can do to stay consistent.
Peter Straub Quotes: Everyone wants to get better
I have been sometimes way too attracted by my own villains because in a way they seem to hold the secret to the heart of the narrative.
Peter Straub Quotes: I have been sometimes way
I don't shy from writing about incredibly unpleasant, distressing things. And I get a kick out of it I confess. I like doing that.
Peter Straub Quotes: I don't shy from writing
The path to wisdom leads downward, and anyone who decides to take it had better buckle on armor, remember to bring a sword, and get used to the idea that when and if he gets back everyone he talks to is going to think he's a phony.
Peter Straub Quotes: The path to wisdom leads
Every writer must acknowledge and be able to handle the unalterable fact that he has, in effect, given himself a life sentence in solitary confinement.
Peter Straub Quotes: Every writer must acknowledge and
She thought, instead, with longing of more books - of buying books - of slipping into a narrative of other people's lives. That was release.
Peter Straub Quotes: She thought, instead, with longing
Sometimes it is right to fear the dark.
Peter Straub Quotes: Sometimes it is right to
To feel our character, our personality, and our personal, hard-won history fade from being is to be exposed to whatever lies beneath these comforting, operational conveniences. What remains when the conscious and functioning self has been erased is mankind's fundamental condition – irrational, violent, guilt-wracked, despairing, and mad.
Peter Straub Quotes: To feel our character, our
Close your mouth and get out of the way, because here comes Kelly Link, than whom no one is better.
Peter Straub Quotes: Close your mouth and get
I had this dream in which I was having a cocktail party, and it was in a big room. I was standing at the door saying hello to people, and Jeffrey Dahmer walks up and I say, 'Oh Jeffrey, please go on in, it's right in there.' And then I say to myself, I just put Jeffrey Dahmer in a room with all my friends.
Peter Straub Quotes: I had this dream in
Nothing is whole, not for too damned long. The world is half night.
Peter Straub Quotes: Nothing is whole, not for
These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.
Peter Straub Quotes: These days, there are a
You'll never get anything done if you walk around with an unchipped heart.
Peter Straub Quotes: You'll never get anything done
From a tale one expects a bit of wildness, of exaggeration and dramatic effect. The tale has no inherent concern with decorum, balance or harmony ... A tale may not display a great deal of structural, psychological, or narrative sophistication, though it might possess all three, but it seldom takes its eye off its primary goal, the creation of a particular emotional state in its reader. Depending on the tale, that state could be wonder, amazement, shock, terror, anger, anxiety, melancholia, or the momentary frisson of horror.
Peter Straub Quotes: From a tale one expects
What was the worst thing you've ever done?
I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me ... the most dreadful thing ...
Peter Straub Quotes: What was the worst thing
She had been like a roller coaster aficionado for whom tame county fair roller coasters were as good as the ones that spun you upside down and dropped you so fast your eyes turned red. It was all just a ride.
Peter Straub Quotes: She had been like a
and rising extremely unlike Phoebus with the dawn to prepare the schoolhouse.
Peter Straub Quotes: and rising extremely unlike Phoebus
Nobody can protect anybody else from vileness. Or from pain. All you can do is not let it break you in half and keep on going until you get to the other side.
Peter Straub Quotes: Nobody can protect anybody else
To do magic, to do great magic, he has to know himself as a piece of the universe.
A piece of the universe?
A little piece that has all the rest of it in it. Everything outside of him is also inside of him.
Peter Straub Quotes: To do magic, to do
Each new book is a tremendous challenge.
Peter Straub Quotes: Each new book is a
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