|
d6845c7
|
It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
6f3f449
|
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.
|
|
life
mediocre
|
Robert Cormier |
|
aba94ed
|
He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went for the jugular. Active verbs that danced and raced on the page.
|
|
words
power-of-words
news
|
Robert Cormier |
|
3caacaa
|
The possibility that hope comes out of hopelessness and that the opposite of things carry the seeds of birth - love out of hate, good out of evil. Didn't flowers grow out of dirt?
|
|
physchotic-thriller
|
Robert Cormier |
|
38142b6
|
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 |
|
b48c8a6
|
Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
dda68f1
|
Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.
|
|
heroes
humanity
love
robert-cormier
psychology
sin
|
Robert Cormier |
|
38f13c1
|
They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
b2e5879
|
A new sickness invaded Jerry, the sickness of knowing what he had become, another animal, another beast, another violent person in a violent world, inflicting damage, not disturbing the universe but damaging it.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
a03db6a
|
Don't miss the bus, boy. You're missing a lot of things in the world, better not miss that bus.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
90ddc76
|
They tell you to do your own thing but they don't mean it. They don't want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
88248ac
|
People throw the word love around like confetti when they actually mean affection.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
c25bbe8
|
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 |
|
dd0c05e
|
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.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
ba9fbe4
|
There was nothing more beautiful in the world than the sight of a teacher getting upset.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
3884110
|
It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
1db2ac5
|
She discovered how distant pity was from hate, how very far it was from love.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
14f22d7
|
Often he rose early in the morning, before anyone else, and poured himself liquid through the sunrise streets, and everything seemed beautiful, everything in its proper orbit, nothing impossible, the entire world attainable.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
b0bf82d
|
They murdered him.
|
|
robert-cormier
opening-sentences
opening-lines
first-sentence
|
Robert Cormier |
|
804914c
|
Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
2096865
|
You see Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. So we have a perfect set-up here. The greed part - a kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part - watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they're safe in the bleachers. That's why it works, Carter, because we're all bastards.
|
|
violence
greed
|
Robert Cormier |
|
5338579
|
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 |
|
63a3d28
|
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 |
|
5272d3c
|
You bring up your children to be self-reliant and independent and they double-cross you and become self-reliant and independent.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
bf4d4d2
|
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 |
|
6ac3899
|
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.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
c547286
|
pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
bcea2ba
|
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 |
|
f676a4c
|
What could he say? After the phone calls and the beating. After the desecration of his locker. The silent treatment. Pushed downstairs. What they did to Goober, to Brother Eugene. What guys like Archie and Janza did to the school. What they would do to the world when they left Trinity.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
9fd23fd
|
Mr. Sinclair once asked the class to make a list of the ten most beautiful words in the English language, and the only word that really seemed beautiful to me was tenderness.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
f8d697d
|
Do I dare disturb the universe? Yes I do, I do. I think.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
8ba2cc1
|
That's what Archie did - built a house nobody could anticipate a need for, except himself, a house that was invisible to everyone else.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
2c7f4ef
|
Pluck my heart From my flesh And eat it.....
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
18d1a45
|
When he ran, he even loved the pain, the hurt of the running, the burning in his lungs and the spasms that sometimes gripped his calves. He loved it because he knew he could endure the pain, and even go beyond it. He had never pushed himself to the limit but he felt all this reserve strength inside of him: more than strength actually--determination. And it sang in him as he ran, his heart pumping blood joyfully through his body.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
86582ad
|
A: Funny about my mother. All my life, from the time I was just a little kid, I thought of her as a sad person. I mean, the way some people are tall or fat or skinny. My father always seemed the stronger one. As if he was a bright color and she was a faded color. I know it sounds crazy. T: Not at all. A: But later, when I learned the truth about our lives, I found she was still sad. But strong, too. Not faded at all. It wasn't sadness so mu..
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
58f2c95
|
Sometimes I wake up at night in a panic. Wondering: What will my life be like? And sometimes I even wonder: Who am I? What am I doing here, on this planet, in this city, in this house? And it gives me the shivers, makes me panic.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
8f5c4ed
|
What have I done, Obie?" Obie flung his hand in the air, the gesture encompassing all the rotten things that had occur under Archie's command, at Archie's direction. The ruined kids, the capsized hopes. Renault last fall and poor Tubs Casper and all the others including even the faculty. Like Brother Eugene. "You know what you've done, Archie. I don't need to draw up a list-" "You blame me for everything, right, Obie? You and Carter and all..
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
9f34dcf
|
Eric Poole began with cats. Or, to be more exact, kittens.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
4e27296
|
Eat my heart Chew it hard Swallow my soul, too
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
d67907b
|
He looks at me fondly. I know that the look doesn't have love in it. Or even lust. I still wonder about love or sex or lust. I saw lust in his eyes when he looked at that girl on the sidewalk ... I love him, anyway. I love him because he's kind to me and he doesn't want my body, doesn't want to feel me or touch me, like all the others ... and maybe after a while he might look at me with more than fondness, will kiss me sweetly, tenderly.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
5fc29f3
|
The Goober was beautiful when he ran. His long arms and legs moved flowingly and flawlessly, his body floating as if his feet weren't touching the ground. When he ran, he forgot about his acne and his awkwardness and the shyness that paralyzed him when a girl looked his way. Even his thoughts became sharper, and things were simple and uncomplicated--he could solve math problems when he ran or memorize football play patterns. Often he rose e..
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
6d91a75
|
Ray Bannister started to build the guillotine the day Jerry Renault returned to Monument.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
e9c6e9a
|
I have always pondered a tragic law of adolescence. (On second thought, the law probably applies to all ages to some extent). That law: People fall in love at the same time--often at the same stunning moment--but they fall out of love at different times. One is left sadly juggling the pieces of a fractured heart while the other has danced away.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |
|
5fe95ea
|
Angry at his parents and all grown-ups who thought that school life was a lark, a good time, the best years of your life with a few test and quizzes thrown in to keep you on your toes. Bullshit. There was nothing good about it. Tests were daily battles in the larger war of school. School meant rules and orders and commands. To say nothing of homework.
|
|
|
Robert Cormier |