Robert Cormier Quotes

We all start out with the same alphabet. We are all unique. Talent is not the most important thing
discipline and dedication are. Craft can be learned but desire and longing are innate. Despite the demands of school and just being young, try to write SOMETHING every day
a description, a captured emotion, a simile, a metaphor. Read, for crying out loud! A writer must read the way a ball player must go to the ballfield every day to practice. Everything is possible in this world of ours
and so's publication. ~ Robert Cormier

Nothing glamorous like the write-ups in the papers or the newsreels. We weren't heroes. We were only there ... ~ Robert Cormier

Eat my heart
Chew it hard
Swallow my soul, too ~ Robert Cormier

You bring up your children to be self-reliant and independent and they double-cross you and become self-reliant and independent. ~ Robert Cormier

There was nothing more beautiful in the world than the sight of a teacher getting upset. ~ Robert Cormier

I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations. ~ Robert Cormier

They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too. ~ Robert Cormier

That's what Archie did - built a house nobody could anticipate a need for, except himself, a house that was invisible to everyone else. ~ Robert Cormier

There are no taboos. Every topic is open, however shocking. It is the way that the topics are handled that's important, and that applies whether it is a 15-year-old who is reading your book or someone who is 55. ~ Robert Cormier

My dream was to be known as a writer and to be able to produce at least one book that would be read by people. That dream came true with the publication of my first novel - and all the rest has been a sweet bonus. ~ Robert Cormier

I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer. ~ Robert Cormier

With no music to listen to, I just biked around in circles talking to myself like a kid on the cover of a Robert Cormier young adult novel, circling around puzzled Jewish families walking back to their cars. This is how I learned to ride a bike. ~ Mindy Kaling

He looks at me fondly. I know that the look doesn't have love in it. Or even lust. I still wonder about love or sex or lust. I saw lust in his eyes when he looked at that girl on the sidewalk ... I love him, anyway. I love him because he's kind to me and he doesn't want my body, doesn't want to feel me or touch me, like all the others ... and maybe after a while he might look at me with more than fondness, will kiss me sweetly, tenderly. ~ Robert Cormier

It came to me that hell would not be fire and smoke after all but arctic, everything white and frigid. Hell would be not anger but indifference. ~ Robert Cormier

Sometimes I wake up at night in a panic. Wondering: What will my life be like? And sometimes I even wonder: Who am I? What am I doing here, on this planet, in this city, in this house? And it gives me the shivers, makes me panic. ~ Robert Cormier

He was swept with a sadness, a sadness deep and penetrating, leaving him desolate like someone washed up on a beach, a lone survivor in a world full of strangers. ~ Robert Cormier

Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence. ~ Robert Cormier

A: Funny about my mother. All my life, from the time I was just a little kid, I thought of her as a sad person. I mean, the way some people are tall or fat or skinny. My father always seemed the stronger one. As if he was a bright color and she was a faded color. I know it sounds crazy.
T: Not at all.
A: But later, when I learned the truth about our lives, I found she was still sad. But strong, too. Not faded at all. It wasn't sadness so much as fear
the Never Knows. ~ Robert Cormier

He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine - not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything. ~ Robert Cormier

At some point in life, we learn our limitations, the distances we can we can travel and the boarders we will never cross. And we go from there. ~ Robert Cormier

Archie became absolutely still, afraid that the rapid beating of his heart might betray his sudden knowledge, the proof of what he'd always suspected, not only of Brother Leon but most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion. ~ Robert Cormier

You could reason with someone who was halfway educated and appeal to his intelligence, but I felt helpless in the face of utter stupidity. ~ Robert Cormier

You seldom get a censorship attempt from a 14-year-old boy. It's the adults who get upset. ~ Robert Cormier

It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks. ~ Robert Cormier

What could he say? After the phone calls and the beating. After the desecration of his locker. The silent treatment. Pushed downstairs. What they did to Goober, to Brother Eugene. What guys like Archie and Janza did to the school. What they would do to the world when they left Trinity. ~ Robert Cormier

What have I done, Obie?"

Obie flung his hand in the air, the gesture encompassing all the rotten things that had occur under Archie's command, at Archie's direction. The ruined kids, the capsized hopes. Renault last fall and poor Tubs Casper and all the others including even the faculty. Like Brother Eugene.

"You know what you've done, Archie. I don't need to draw up a list-"

"You blame me for everything, right, Obie? You and Carter and all the others. Archie Costello, the bad guy. The villain. Archie, the bastard. Trinity would be such a beautiful place without Archie Costello. Right, Obie? But it's not me, Obie, it's not me...."

"Not you?" Obie cried, fury gathering in his throat, his chest, his guts. "What the hell do you mean, not you? This could have been a beautiful place to be, Archie. A beautiful time for all of us. Christ, who else, if not you?"

"Do you really want to know who?"

"Okay, who then?" Impatient with his crap, the old Archie crap.

"It's you, Obie. You and Carter and Bunting and Leon and everybody. But especially you, Obie. Nobody forced you to do anything, buddy. Nobody made you join the Vigils. Nobody twisted your arm to make you secretary of the Vigils. Nobody pain you to keep a notebook with all that crap about the students, all their weaknesses, soft points. The notebook made your job easier, didn't it, Obie? And what was your job? Finding the victims. You found them, Obie. Yo ~ Robert Cormier

I have always pondered a tragic law of adolescence. (On second thought, the law probably applies to all ages to some extent). That law: People fall in love at the same time - often at the same stunning moment - but they fall out of love at different times. One is left sadly juggling the pieces of a fractured heart while the other has danced away. ~ Robert Cormier

A new sickness invaded Jerry, the sickness of knowing what he had become, another animal, another beast, another violent person in a violent world, inflicting damage, not disturbing the universe but damaging it. ~ Robert Cormier

They murdered him. ~ Robert Cormier

Often he rose early in the morning, before anyone else, and poured himself liquid through the sunrise streets, and everything seemed beautiful, everything in its proper orbit, nothing impossible, the entire world attainable. ~ Robert Cormier

I was never a cool person; in fact, cool people have always made fun of me. That's why I loved [the Robert Cormier YA novel] The Chocolate War - because the cool kids (not the establishment) were the villains. I totally identified with that. ~ Simon Rich

Eric Poole began with cats. Or, to be more exact, kittens. ~ Robert Cormier

I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper. ~ Robert Cormier

Pluck my heart
From my flesh
And eat it..... ~ Robert Cormier

Angry at his parents and all grown-ups who thought that school life was a lark, a good time, the best years of your life with a few test and quizzes thrown in to keep you on your toes. Bullshit. There was nothing good about it. Tests were daily battles in the larger war of school. School meant rules and orders and commands. To say nothing of homework. ~ Robert Cormier

People throw the word love around like confetti when they actually mean affection. ~ Robert Cormier

You see Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. So we have a perfect set-up here. The greed part - a kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part - watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they're safe in the bleachers. That's why it works, Carter, because we're all bastards. ~ Robert Cormier

My wife likes to say there are two kinds of people, those chasing pleasure and those running from pain. Maybe she's right, I don't know. What I do know is this: Pleasure helps you forget. But pain, pain forces you to hope. You tell yourself this can't last. Today could be different. Today something just might change. ~ Robert Cormier

Do I dare disturb the universe?
Yes, I do, I do. I think.
Jerry suddenly understood the poster
the solitary man on the beach standing upright and alone and unafraid, poised at the moment of making himself heard and known in the world, the universe. ~ Robert Cormier

Happiness is a way of traveling and not a destination ~ Robert Cormier

Pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it. ~ Robert Cormier

It would be nice to avoid the world, to leave it and all its threats and unhappiness. Not to die or anything like that, but to find a place of solitude and solace. ~ Robert Cormier

Ray Bannister started to build the guillotine the day Jerry Renault returned to Monument. ~ Robert Cormier

He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went for the jugular. Active verbs that danced and raced on the page. ~ Robert Cormier

I wonder if it's a special sin to lie to a nun ~ Robert Cormier

Family life was wonderful. The streets were bleak. The playgrounds were bleak. But home was always warm. My mother and father had a great relationship. I always felt 'safe' there. ~ Robert Cormier

I thought I was in love, but it was only a head cold. (Humans) ~ Robert Emmett

The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

My life as a professional musician is a joyless exercise in futility. ~ Robert Fripp

(I)f France's righteous bloviating against war makes them your Dashboard Saint of International Integrity, it's either because you are sand-poundingly ignorant of how the world works or it's because you think France's self-interest is more important than America's. If the former applies to you, read a book. If it's the latter, maybe you should move there along with Alec Baldwin, Robert Altman, and the rest of the crowd who promised to leave a long time ago. But whatever you do, don't call France's position principled, because that just insults us both. ~ Jonah Goldberg

I believe, whoever sees the Grail will find it agreeable. It charms all those of this land, they find it pleasant and agreeable; those who are able to remain with it and can bear its presence, when they see it they feel delight, they are as happy as a fish when a man holds it in his hand, and it can escape from his hand and return to swimming unconfined in the water. ~ Robert De Boron

Guilt is like a putrid sludge that courses through our flesh. ~ Robert Palasciano

It also demonstrated that far from being an impediment, knowledge is an asset to feminine charm. ~ Robert F. Young

Here are a few of the sources I used, and I heartily recommend them: Simon Baron-Cohen, The Science of Evil; Judith Beck, Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Louis Cozolino, The Making of a Therapist; Kevin Dutton, The Wisdom of Psychopaths; James Fallon, The Psychopath Inside; Peter and Ginger Ross Breggin, Talking Back to Prozac; Robert D. ~ Lisa Scottoline

The Universe is like a flowing river, and you are connected to it. It's pointless to worry about which of the endless branches in the river to take, or to try and fight the flow, far better just to drift and let the river take you where it will, because ultimately you will end up at the same destination anyway. ~ Robert Black

To discover we have no story is to acknowledge that our existence is meaningless, which we may find unbearable ~ Robert Fulford

O Deus Ego Amo Te

Oh God, I love Thee mightily,
Not only for Thy saving me,
Nor yet because who love not Thee
Must burn throughout eternity.
Thou, Thou, my Jesu, once didst me
Embrace upon the bitter Tree.
For me the nails, the soldier's spear,
With injury and insult, bear-
In pain all pain exceeding,
In sweating and in bleeding,
Yea, very death, and that for me
A sinner all unheeding!
O Jesu, should I not love Thee
Who thus hast dealt so lovingly-
Not hoping some reward to see,
Nor lest I my damnation be;
But as Thyself hast loved me,
So love I now and always Thee,
Because my King alone Thou art,
Because, O God, mine own Thou art! ~ Robert Hugh Benson

From that night on, the electron-up to that time largely the plaything of the scientist-had clearly entered the field as a potent agent in the supplying of man's commercial and industrial needs ... The electronic amplifier tube now underlies the whole art of communications, and this in turn is at least in part what has made possible its application to a dozen other arts. It was a great day for both science and industry when they became wedded through the development of the electronic amplifier tube. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan

Every sentiment has a history, either in the experience of the individual, or in the experience of the race, but the person who acts on that sentiment may not be aware of the history. ~ Robert Ezra Park

Nature's law, That man was made to mourn. Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man's dearest friend, The kindest and the best! ~ Robert Burns

What Robert was trying to do so intently was, in fact, no more than craft. He did no more than copy my tics and twitches - even to the point of staring at my family portrait, a very personal part of my disguise, for his character research - ~ Jeff Lindsay

When people say 'What are underground comics?' I think the best way you can define them is just the absolute freedom involved ... we didn't have anyone standing over us. ~ Robert Crumb

The illusion of free will is straining under the weight of determinism. ~ Robert Kroese

There is really no good English translation for adab. It means behaving well or good etiquette. It is acting with heedfulness, beauty, refinement, graciousness, and respect for others. The Koran teaches us the importance of acting beautifully. "Do what is beautiful. God loves those who do what is beautiful." (2:195) ~ Robert Frager

I was an usher at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith. You had to watch whatever play they had on 40 times. ~ Robert Webb

The greatest blessings of general conference come to us after the conference is over. Remember the pattern recorded frequently in scripture: we gather to hear the words of the Lord, and we return to our homes to live them. ~ Robert D. Hales

Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas. ~ Robert McKee

I got my job through the New York Times. [Written underneath:] So did Castro. ~ Robert Reisner

A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with. ~ Robert Frost

There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths. ~ Robert E.Lee

Only 8000 different words appear in the Hebrew Bible, compared to the 20,000 or more that the average adult needs to know in most languages. ~ Robert Lane Greene

Society taught us how to hate. Hate taught us violence. Violence taught us regret. Regret taught us pain. Pain taught us love. Love taught us how to laugh and laughter makes every moment far more beautiful then we could ever imagine. ~ Robert M. Drake

Death, in its silent sure march is fast gathering those whom I have longest loved, so that when he shall knock at my door, I will more willingly follow. ~ Robert E.Lee

Xavier would be such a great burger. He's all covered in spread ... ~ Robert Pattinson

The LSP makes clear that in OOD the ISA relationship pertains to behavior. Not intrinsic private behavior, but extrinsic public behavior; behavior that clients depend upon. ~ Robert C. Martin

The essence of Bonham is what he didn't play rather than what he did play - what he left out. ~ Robert Plant

I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written. ~ Robert M. Gates

Have courage and a little willingness to venture and be defeated. ~ Robert Frost

Dr. Robert Hare (author of Without Conscience: The Disturbing World Of The Psychopaths Among Us) ~ Mick Strawser

Everything in physiology follows the rule that too much can be as bad as too little. There are optimal points of allostatic balance. For example, while a moderate amount of exercise generally increases bone mass, thirty-year-old athletes who run 40 to 50 miles a week can wind up with decalcified bones, decreased bone mass, increased risk of stress fractures and scoliosis (sideways curvature of the spine) - their skeletons look like those of seventy-year-olds. To put exercise in perspective, imagine this: sit with a group of hunter-gatherers from the African grasslands and explain to them that in our world we have so much food and so much free time that some of us run 26 miles in a day, simply for the sheer pleasure of it. They are likely to say, "Are you crazy? That's stressful." Throughout hominid history, if you're running 26 miles in a day, you're either very intent on eating someone or someone's very intent on eating you. ~ Robert M. Sapolsky

Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine
You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine.
The throne that I won by blood and sweat , by Crom, I will not sell
For promise of valleys filled with gold, or threat of the Halls of Hell! ~ Robert E. Howard

I think my first experience of art, or the joy in making art, was playing the horn at some high-school dance or bar mitzvah or wedding, looking at a roomful of people moving their bodies around in time to what I was doing. There was a piano player, a bass player, a drummer, and my breath making the melody. ~ Robert Pinsky

Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third class in Bulgaria. ~ Robert Benchley

Part of my job is to try and seduce people. It's what I get paid for, and if people get in the way of me doing my job I can be very difficult. ~ Robert Powell

The whole idea of music, from the beginning of time, was for people to be happy ~ Robert Plant