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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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Robert Cormier
Age: 75 †
Born: 1925
Born: January 17
Died: 2000
Died: November 2
Author
Journalist
Writer
Bay State
Robert Edmund Cormier
Around
Character
Ideas
Writing
Telling
Going
Fool
Really
Novel
Always
Idea
Write

More quotes by 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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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.
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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I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are.
Robert Cormier
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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
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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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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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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
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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.
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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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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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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I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper.
Robert Cormier
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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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It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.
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
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I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.
Robert Cormier
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I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt.
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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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