Quote

We often think that tragedies happen because of great earthquakes in people's lives. I think they sometimes occur because of small things that become obsessive to a particular person.

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
Persons
Tragedy
Person
Particular
Sometimes
Happen
Great
Small
Things
Lives
Tragedies
Think
Often
Earthquakes
Thinking
Happens
Obsessive
People
Become
Occur

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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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The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.
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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
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Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.
Robert Cormier
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I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper.
Robert Cormier
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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.
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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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They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.
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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
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...pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it.
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 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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Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?
Robert Cormier
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As much as there is joy in writing, there's always the little bit of terror to keep you on edge, on your toes. It is a strange way to occupy yourself - to enjoy your life on a daily basis. There is no guarantee that something great is going to come next.
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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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.
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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.
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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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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
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And he did see--that life was rotten, that there were no heroes, really, and that you couldn't trust anybody, not even yourself.
Robert Cormier