Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert Cormier
Age: 75 †
Born: 1925
Born: January 17
Died: 2000
Died: November 2
Author
Journalist
Writer
Bay State
Robert Edmund Cormier
Find
Book
Writing
Something
Indulged
Like
Authors
Books
Almost
Sense

More quotes by Robert Cormier

Image
Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.
Robert Cormier
Image
I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.
Robert Cormier
Image
They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.
Robert Cormier
Image
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
Image
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.
Robert Cormier
Image
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
Image
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.
Robert Cormier
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper.
Robert Cormier
Image
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
Image
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
Image
You bring up your children to be self-reliant and independent and they double-cross you and become self-reliant and independent.
Robert Cormier
Image
Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.
Robert Cormier
Image
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
Image
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.
Robert Cormier
Image
...pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it.
Robert Cormier
Image
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
Image
A writer must take risks, defy the odds, be a bit obsessed and a little mad.
Robert Cormier
Image
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