Top Robert Cormier Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Robert Cormier Biography

Robert Edmund Cormier (January 17, 1925 – November 2, 2000) was an American author and journalist, known for his deeply pessimistic novels, many of which were written for young adults. Recurring themes include abuse, mental illness, violence, revenge, betrayal, and conspiracy. In most of his novels, the protagonists do not win.

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Robert Cormier Quotes

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.

Book, Jugular, Literary, News Stories, Page, Writing

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.

Jerry, Mother, Sadness, Somebody, Way

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.

Avoid, Leave, Nice, Place, Solitude, Would Be

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.

Character, Fool, Ideas, Write, Writing

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.

Guarantees That, Life, Occupy, Occupy Yourself, Way, Writing

They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.

Actually, Thing, Unless, Want

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.

Beach, Desolate, Leaving, Sadness, Strangers

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.

Mind, See, Segments, Think, Thinking, Writing

I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations.

Extraordinary, People, Real, Situation, Situations, Take

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.

Book, Night, Opinion, Overriding, People, Stay

. . . pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it.

Certain, Doe, Intensity, Pain, Survive

We all start out with the same alphabet. We are all unique. Talent is not the most important thing --- discipline and dedication are. Craft can be learned but desire and longing are innate. Despite the demands of school and just being young, try to write SOMETHING every day --- a description, a captured emotion, a simile, a metaphor. Read, for crying out loud! A writer must read the way a ball player must go to the ballfield every day to practice. Everything is possible in this world of ours--- and so's publication.

Ball, Longing, Player, School, Start, Writing

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?

Dirt, Flower, Hate, Hopelessness, Opposites, Seeds

I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.

Adolescence, Alone, Inspirational, Life, Teenager, Teens

I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.

Book, Lived, Lives, Lost, Pages, Thousand

That's what Archie did - built a house nobody could anticipate a need for, except himself, a house that was invisible to everyone else.

Archie, Built, House, Invisible, Needs, Nobody

I write very tightly, and my big fear is boring people. I want them to read quickly, stopped in their tracks. I resist indulging myself.

Indulging, People, Read, Tightly, Track, Writing

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.

Book, Frightens, Kids, School, Schools, Terrified

It would be the death of all creativity for me if I had to sit there and be concerned with the sensibilities of a fourteen-year-old kid. Some fourteen-year-olds would revel in the book, and some would be very sensitive to it, so you can't afford to worry about that. What I worry about is good taste and getting my message across by whatever means I can.

Book, Creativity, Mean, Message, Sensibilities

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.

Beach, Making, Man, Men, Thinking, Understood

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