Robert Bloch Quotes

Forget the past, let the dead bury the dead. Things were working out fine, and that was the only thing he had to remember.

Evil exists everywhere. Sometimes I think our limited senses are designed to protect us from awareness of its presence. We trust them to provide us with knowledge but it may be that they block out realization of horrors we cannot bear.

Looking back, looking back and trying to figure what made you that way, several things stand out in your mind. There may have been more than several. Maybe there were a hundred. Maybe a thousand. Small events, little episodes, all pointing you in the same direction, so that you might think you had free will when you wobbled from side to side on the track, but there were no switches for you to throw, no turnings to choose.

It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.

Norman Bates will never die...

I urge you with all sincerity to get to work, write a book, write two - three - four books, just as a matter of course. Don't worry about 'wasting' an idea or 'spoiling' a plot by going too fast. If you are capable of turning out a masterpiece, you'll get other and even better ideas in the future. Right now your job is to write, and to write books so that by so doing you'll gain the experience to write still better books later on.

Sure God created man before woman, but then again you always make a rough draft before creating the final masterpiece.

It's all right", he said, wondering at the same time why there were no better words, why there never are any better words to answer fear and grief and loneliness. "It's all right, believe me.

Then she did see it there - just a face, peering through the curtains, hanging in midair like a mask. A head-scarf concealed the hair and the glassy eyes stared inhumanly, but it wasn't a mask, it couldn't be. The skin had been powdered dead-white and two hectic spots of rouge centered on the cheekbones. It wasn't a mask. It was the face of a crazy old woman. Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher's knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.
And her head.

Once you began speculation about that, once you admited to yourself that you didn't really know how another person's mind operated, then you came up against the ultimate admission - anything was possible.

If she sat there without moving, they wouldn't punish her. If she sar there without moving, they'd know that she was sane, sane, sane.

But first he was going to take a drink, a big drink, because he needed one. And it didn't matter whether he drank or not, nothing mattered now; it was all over. All over, or just beginning.

He winced at the realization, then took a deep breath. This was no time to be self-conscious or self-critical. One had to be prctical. Very practical, very careful, very calm.

A boy's best friend is his mother.

Henderson sighed. There was a time, he reflected, when the coming of this night meant something. A dark Europe, groaning in superstitious fear, dedicated this Eve to the grinning Unknown. A million doors had once been barred against the evil visitants, a million prayers mumbled, a million candles lit. There was something majestic about the idea, Henderson reflected.

Mother would be in real trouble right now.

Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly...

The light shone down on his plump face, reflected from his rimless glasses, bathed the pinkness of his scalp beneath the thinning sandy hair as he bent his head to resume reading.

A foolish man tells a woman to stop talking, but a wise man tells her that her mouth is extremely beautiful when her lips are closed.

Everything in this business makes sense, because it serves a real purpose, fills a need that's a part of living. Even a single nail, like this one, fulfills a function. Drive it into a crucial place and you can depend on it to do a job, keep on doing it for a hundred years to come. Long after we're dead and gone, both of us.

That's the way girls were
they always laughed. Because they were bitches.

So I had this problem
work or starve. So I thought I'd combine the two and decided to become a writer.

Lila closed her mouth, but the scream continued. It was the insane scream of an hysterical woman, and it came from the throat of Norman Bates.

He wanted to shout at her that she was wrong, but he couldn't. Because the things she was saying were the things he had told himself, over and over again, all through the years. It was true. She'd always laid down the law to him, but that didn't mean he always had to obey. Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed. There had been other widows, other only sons, and not all of them became enmeshed in this sort of relationship. It was really his fault as much as hers. Because he didn't have any gumption.

I have the heart of a child. I keep it in a jar on my shelf.

Norman sighed and shook his head. He couldn't afford the risk. Not while that thing still sprawled in the shower stall back at the motel. Leaving it there was even more risky.

The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone else he can blame it on.

She was the only one left, and she was real.
To be the only one, and to know that you are real - that's sanity, isn't it?
But just to be on the safe side, maybe it was best to keep pretending that one was a stuffed figure. Not to move. Never to move. Just to sit here in the tiny room, forever and ever.
If she sat there without moving, they wouldn't punish her.
If she sat there without moving, they'd know that she was sane, sane, sane.
She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars.
It lighted on her hand.
If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly.
But she didn't swat it.
She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that proved what sort of a person she really was.
Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly ...

I always carry a pistol when I go [to the New York Public Library]. Never did trust those stone lions.

She'd thrown something at the mirror, and then the mirror broke into a thousand pieces and she knew that wasn't all; she was breaking into a thousand pieces, too.

All at once she could hear the sullen patter of the rain and sense the sigh of the wind behind it. She remembered the sound, because it had rained like that the day Mom was buried, the day they lowered her into that little rectangle of darkness.

But meanwhile he had to do something about the way his heart pounded.

That was still my meat - the true-detective yarn. I picked it up and started to read it over, wondering for the ten thousandth time why so many people are interested in crime and its solution.

The sun disappeared into the woods and shadows started slinking out from between the trees."

short story, Pumpkin

Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.

Why do we personify time? Is it because we're afraid to admit that our lives are measured by an abstract force that neither knows nor cares about our entry into existence? Or our departure into death? Time is our mysterious master giving it a face and hands we attempt to transform it into our servant.

Mind you, I cannot swear that my story is true. It may have been a dream; or worse, a symptom of some severe mental disorder. But I believe it is true. After all, how are we to know what things there are on earth? Strange monstrosities still exist, and foul, incredible perversions. Every war, each new geographical or scientific discovery, brings to light some new bit of ghastly evidence that the world is not altogether the same place we fondly imagine it to be. Sometimes peculiar incidents occur which hint of utter madness.

How can we be sure that our smug conceptions of reality actually exist? To one man in a million dreadful knowledge is revealed, and the rest of us remain mercifully ignorant. There have been travelers who never came back, and research workers who disappeared. Some of those who did return were deemed mad because of what they told, and others sensibly concealed the wisdom that had so horribly been revealed. Blind as we are, we know a little of what lurks beneath our normal life. There have been tales of sea serpents and creatures of the deep; legends of dwarfs and giants; records of queer medical horrors and unnatural births. Stunted nightmares of men's personalities have blossomed into being under the awful stimulus of war, or pestilence, or famine. There have been cannibals, necrophiles, and ghouls; loathsome rites of worship and sacrifice; maniacal murders, and blasphemous crimes. When I think, then, of what I saw and heard, and compare it with

It was really a fascinating book - no wonder he hadn't noticed how fast the time had passed.

It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly...

The thought came creeping, just as the numbness came creeping, stealing over his senses, softly, smoothly, there in the silken silence.

We all go a little mad sometimes.

He pressed a switch and the bedside lamp blossomed and sent forth yellow petals of light.

Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed.

Strange how everyone tried to disguise truth with nonsense. Like the slang for death: kicking the bucket, wiped out, snuffed, wasted, blown away. The light touch to dispel the heavy fear.

As she reached the landing, the thunder came. The whole house seemed to shake with it.

Funny how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie.

All at once that was the most important thing - to get out of the dark.

The room was plainly but adequately furnished; she noted the shower stall in the bathroom beyond. Actually, she would have preferred a tub, but this would do.

What kind of a hick town is this, anyway?" she murmured. "A bank is held up and the sheriff is in church. What's he doing, praying that somebody will catch the robbers for him?

I'VE never seen such a look of mortal agony on a human face before. She screamed quite a bit before she died, and the last shriek was forever frozen on her face.

Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him.

Forget the pat, let the dead burry the dead.

Their smiles were cracking. Glass is brittle.

Horror is the removal of masks.

And then, as he ripped back the shower curtains and stared down at the hacked and twisted thing sprawled on the floor of the stall, he realized that Mother had used her keys.

Norman stirred, turned, and then fell into a darkness deeper and more engulfing than the swamp.

Yes, Norman, I suppose you're right. That's where I'd probably be. But I wouldn't be there alone." Norman slammed the door, locked it, and turned away. He wasn't quite sure, but as he ran up the cellar steps he thought he could still hear her chuckling gently in the dark.

Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.