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

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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.
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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.
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I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper.
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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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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.
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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.
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I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are.
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A terrific sadness swept over Jerry. As if somebody had died. The way he felt standing in the cemetry that day they buried his mother. And nothing you could do about it.
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Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?
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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.
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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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I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.
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I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.
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.
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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.
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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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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.
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You hope that people read your book and say Yes, this is the way it is or could be. But then you have no way of knowing until the reader reads the book. Actually, the critical response doesn't worry me. I've had very few reviews that have upset me.
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There are moments that stop the heart, that catch the breath, that halt the beat of blood in your veins, and you are suspended in time, held between life and death, and you wait for something to bring you back again.
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A writer must take risks, defy the odds, be a bit obsessed and a little mad.
Robert Cormier