Ketchum Quotes

Crayfish," I said. I dumped out a tin of water. "Really?" I nodded. "Big ones?" "Not these. You can find them, though." "Can I see?" She dropped down off the bank just like a boy would, not sitting first, just putting her left hand to the ground and vaulting the three-foot drop to the first big stone in the line that led zigzag across the water. She studied the line a moment and then crossed to the Rock. I was impressed. She had no hesitation and her balance was perfect. I made room for her. There was suddenly this fine clean smell sitting next to me. Her eyes were green. She looked around. To all of us back then the Rock was something special. It sat smack in the middle of the deepest part of the brook, the water running clear and fast around it. ~ Jack Ketchum

can. "New York City, huh?" "Yup." She rolled up her sleeves and dipped down into the water. And that was when I noticed the scar. "Jeez. What's that?" It started just inside her left elbow and ran down to the wrist like a long pink twisted worm. She saw where I was looking. "Accident," she said. "We were in a car." Then she looked back into the water where you could see her reflection shimmering. "Jeez." But then she didn't seem to want to talk much after that. "Got any more of 'em?" I don't know why scars are always so fascinating to boys, but they are, it's a fact of life, and I just couldn't help it. I couldn't shut up about it yet. Even though I knew she wanted me to, even though ~ Jack Ketchum

I never meant to push or shove you. Do you know how much I love you? ~ Hal Ketchum

The dialogue is solo now. I don't talk. No matter who's in bed with me I never do. My thoughts slip off into nightmares sometimes but I don't share them. I have become now what I only began to be then - completely self-protective. ~ Jack Ketchum

I lay in bed and thought about how easy it was to hurt a person. It didn't have to be physical. All you had to do was take a good hard kick at something they cared about. ~ Jack Ketchum

Black coffee's a lot like whiskey, you know? All devil and no trimmin's. Always liked my sins pure and take it as it comes. ~ Jack Ketchum

But I figure passion's like the wind in the trees out there. Blows hard for a while and feels strong and clean while it's blowing and maybe it even blows so long and hard that you start living with it. It feels like the wind's a part of you, like it's essential, if you know what I mean, something you can hardly imagine life without. But it's got to pass. So you can get on with things without all the confusion of that wind in your hair. ~ Jack Ketchum

I have always felt a fundamental core of loneliness in me. Perhaps it comes from being an only child. Perhaps it's my grandfather's sullen thick German blood. I have been alone with my wife and alone with my children, untouchable, unreachable, and I suspect that most of the time they haven't known. It runs deep, this aloneness. I have accommodated it. It informs all my relationships and all my expectations. It makes me almost impossible to surprise by life's grimmer turns of fate. ~ Jack Ketchum

I've got a lot of things that are probably obvious, not much outside the box right now. But, I have been listening to a lot of classical music lately for some reason. I used to do that a lot when I was doing cabinet making in New England. I've sort of returned to that for some reason. That might be surprising to people. ~ Hal Ketchum

To her eyes, used to diversity, there was a troubling uniformity about them all, something that spoke of isolation, and a dull and thoughtless cruelty. ~ Jack Ketchum

Yes, I'm tough as nails, got a heart of steel I will never fear for I will never feel. ~ Hal Ketchum

I'll be in hell before you start breakfast - let her rip! ~ Tom Ketchum

There's an Elvis movie on the marquee sign, we've all seen at least three times. ~ Hal Ketchum

Betty Knot was sitting on the porch now with her old mongrel dog. Both of them fast and peacefully asleep in the shade, almost comically so, the widow leaning in her rocker with her mouth open wide and the old dog sprawled at her feet. And seeing them there made him smile and then unexpectedly saddened him with a sudden forceful clarity. It was as though he had looked behind the scene on the porch across the street into some terrible scene in the future. Because they each were all the other had in the world by way of comfort and it was possible for him to understand in that moment the cruel eventuality that was blooming there. They were both so damn old. He sensed a sort of fate about them and sensed too that it would descend upon them soon, that soon either the woman would lose the dog or the dog would lose the woman and they had been together since the dog was a pup. When death came to one the other would be left alone, no familiar hand to pat the dog or cool wet nose to nuzzle the hand, and there would be no consoling either dog or woman, something fragile lost forever in some awful rending. ~ Jack Ketchum

We were just kids. We were property. We belonged to our parents, body and soul. It meant we were doomed in the face of any real danger from the adult world and that meant hopelessness, and humiliation and anger. ~ Jack Ketchum

Someone once said to me that if you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans. Just tell him who you are. ~ Jack Ketchum

Six-Pack didn't despise George W. Bush to the degree that Ketchum did, but she thought the president was a smirking twerp and a dumbed-down daddy's boy, and she agreed with Ketchum's assessment that Bush would be as worthless as wet crap in even the smallest crisis. If a fight broke out between two small dogs, for example, Ketchum claimed that Bush would call the fire department and ask them to bring a hose; then the president would position himself at a safe distance from the dogfight, and wait for the firemen to show up. The part Pam liked best about this assessment was that Ketchum said the president would instantly look self-important, and would appear to be actively involved
that is, once the firefighters and their hose arrived, and provided there was anything remaining of the mess the two dogs might have made of each other in the interim. ~ John Irving

I'm guessing you're tits deep in a horror novel. Something by Laymon, or Ketchum, or one of those sick fucks you read. ~ Kyle M. Scott

Dear God!" the cook cried. "Soon all the wood on Twisted River will be pulpwood - for paper! What about toboggans is worse than paper?" "Books are made from paper!" Ketchum declared. "What role do toboggans play in your son's education? ~ John Irving

I think after all I found a feature which is incredible and kind of mein or let's say it something which is part of my childhood in the Jack Ketchum Novels and films. ~ Deyth Banger

We've been an empire in decline since I can remember," Ketchum said bluntly; he wasn't kidding. "We are a lost nation, Danny. Stop farting around. ~ John Irving

My boss at Christmas was a lot of fun: "I want you to look in your pay envelopes and you'll know that I keep the Christmas spirit around here. Because in each and every envelope you'll find ... snow." ~ David Ketchum

In the basement, with Ruth, I began to learn that anger, hate, fear and loneliness are all one button awaiting the touch of just a single finger to set them blazing toward destruction. ~ Jack Ketchum

Sympathy can turn so quickly. Just add fear. Stir. ~ Jack Ketchum

Bar life is about as democratic as we get. ~ Jack Ketchum

pain can work form the outside in. ~ Jack Ketchum

I had a second drink to wipe out the raw taste of the first. ~ Philip Ketchum

You tell me why's a man's blood is any better or any more precious than a dog's blood? It sure ain't to the dog. ~ Jack Ketchum

But there's also the fact that in my experience most of my readers are first and foremost plain old-fashioned readers. Good readers. They're not looking for cozy brand-name output and that means I don't have to give it to 'em. They're not lazy and have little patience with pre-fab beach-bag books or Oprah's opine du jour. They're questers.
They know that every now and then you're gonna get lucky and pure gold like King and Straub's Black House will simply drop into your lap at the local supermarket but after that, if your bent is horror and suspense fiction, you're gonna have to get your hands dirty and root around for more. Find a Ramsey Campbell or an Edward Lee. They expect diversity and search it out. They want what all good readers want - to be taken somewhere in a book or a story that's really worth visiting for a while. Maybe even worth thinking about after.
If that place happens to scare the hell out of you all the better. ~ Jack Ketchum

Friendship and sex were really all she wanted from men these days. ~ Jack Ketchum

Usually it's lyric first, but sometimes it's melody. And I carry a hand-held recorder everywhere I go so I can just hum or whistle a melody if one hits me. Sometimes it's both simultaneously - lyric and melody at the same time - those are a little confusing to me, but sometimes it comes in that form. I just feel like I have my own little radio station and sometimes the static clears and something beams in from out there. ~ Hal Ketchum