Quote

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

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Robert Cormier
Age: 75 †
Born: 1925
Born: January 17
Died: 2000
Died: November 2
Author
Journalist
Writer
Bay State
Robert Edmund Cormier
Anger
Hell
Fire
Came
White
Frigid
Everything
Arctic
Would
Indifference
Smoke

More quotes by Robert Cormier

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I find that most books that I don't like are those in which the authors have indulged themselves. I can almost sense when they're writing something for themselves.
Robert Cormier
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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
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You bring up your children to be self-reliant and independent and they double-cross you and become self-reliant and independent.
Robert Cormier
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I am frightened by today's world, terrified by it. I think that comes out in the books. I'm afraid of big things. Some of these schools have three thousand kids, and even the size of the schools frightens me. Big government frightens me so does big defense.
Robert Cormier
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I don't think I began to be a professional writer until I learned my weaknesses and what I couldn't do. This forced me to compensate.
Robert Cormier
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I read a lot of detective stories because they always deliver. They give you a beginning, a middle, and an end - a resolution. The modern novels I read don't always deliver because I'm looking essentially for a story. As in Shakespeare, The play's the thing. In particular I read detective stories for pacing, plot and suspense.
Robert Cormier
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I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are.
Robert Cormier
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It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.
Robert Cormier
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You have to accept the critical reviews if they treat you with respect. Actually, it's one person's opinion. So, it's a concern but not an overriding one, and I don't stay up nights worrying about reviews. But there are certain people I respect who I hope will like a book.
Robert Cormier
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A writer must take risks, defy the odds, be a bit obsessed and a little mad.
Robert Cormier
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Writing, even though it's hard work, is really a joy when you get these characters to come alive. It's hard to trace where they come from. I can't say that I am sitting here one night at nine o'clock and that a character occurs to me. The magic for me happens at the typewriter.
Robert Cormier
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Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?
Robert Cormier
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I don't mean to be insolent. I'm truthful. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts. For instance, you have bad breath, Lieutenant. I can smell it from here. It must offend a lot of people. That's the truth. But how many people have told you that? Instead, they either lie or try to avoid your company.
Robert Cormier
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Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.
Robert Cormier
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Kids tell me all the time, I don't know how you do it, but that's us in the book. That's the kind of response you want, and I can't sacrifice it for the sake of somebody worried about censorship. You have to find a way to be truthful and honest.
Robert Cormier
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I'm always telling myself as I write that I'm not really writing a novel I'm just going to fool around with a character or an idea.
Robert Cormier
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Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.
Robert Cormier
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I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.
Robert Cormier
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When I write, I never think of segments as chapters I think of them as scenes. I always visualize them in my mind. Then I try to get the scene down on paper as closely as I can. That's the one thing that readers don't see - what you have in your mind. The reader can only see what you get on the page.
Robert Cormier
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I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.
Robert Cormier