Home > Author > Paul Tremblay
1 " But ghosts aren't white and bright. Ghosts are shadows of someone or something gone wrong. "
― Paul Tremblay , Disappearance at Devil's Rock
2 " It was so dark it was like noting was there in the room but us. Only the nothing was actually something because it filled my eyes and lungs and it sat on my shoulders. "
― Paul Tremblay , A Head Full of Ghosts
3 " I swoon into a standing eight count. Goddamn, I actually feel my consciousness want to detach and hide like a turtle retreating into a hopelessly soft shell that won't save anyone. "
― Paul Tremblay , No Sleep Till Wonderland (Mark Genevich, #2)
4 " On the morning of the exorcism, I stayed home from school. "
5 " She kept talking and she kept talking. I thought she would never stop. Standing there, I felt the sun pour through the windows, setting and rising on my back. The sunroom had become a sundial measuring the geological age of my psychological toture. "
6 " I'm a name and a question. "
― Paul Tremblay , The Little Sleep (Mark Genevich, #1)
7 " He’s probably seen that horrible Johnny Depp version of the movie. That you kids like it and not the original Gene Wilder version is sacrilege.” “Mom, "
8 " Soon. You keep saying soon. I don't think you and I share that words meaning. "
― Paul Tremblay , The Last Conversation
9 " Hope is a desperate man's currency. "
10 " Having a talk was another buzzword phrase in our house, one that meant something was wrong. More often than not their talks we're controlled arguments that generally centered on housework (laundry piles still on the dining room table!) or the handling of us girls. Revelations gleaned in a typical talk: Dad didn't like the condescending tone Mom often used with is; Mom didn't like his yelling and its wildly inconst usage; Dad thought she was too quick to punish; Mom didn't like having her discipline edicts questioned in front of us. Initially acrimonious, their talks somehow managed to end like a pregame pep talk: rote promises to be rational in the face of our irrationality, a renewed commitment to present a united front, team play, then hands in the middle: Go, parents on three, ready, break! "
11 " Her dads warned her that some people won't understand their family and might say ignorant (their word) and hurtful things to her and it might not be their fault because of what they've been taught by other ignorant people with too much hate in their hearts, and, yes, it was very sad. Wen assumed they were talking about the same bad or stranger-danger people that hide in the city and want to take her away, but the more they talked to her about what Scott had said and why others might say things like that, too, the more it seemed like they were talking about everyday kind of people. Weren't the three of them everyday kind of people? She pretended to understand for her dads' sake, but she didn't and still doesn't. Why do she and her family need to be understood or explained to anyone else? "
― Paul Tremblay , The Cabin at the End of the World
12 " They share another long look. This one is reserved for ill-fated observers in the moments before impending, inescapable calamity, whether it be natural disaster or violent failure of humanity; a look of resigned melancholy and awe, unblinking in the face of a revealed, horrific, sacred truth. And they realize again, in this darkest hour of the darkest day, they remain alone, fundamentally alone. "
13 " No matter how bleak or dire, end-of-the-world scenarios appeal to us because we take meaning from the end... there's also undeniable allure to witnessing the beginning of the end and perishing alone with everyone and everything else. "
14 " Being lost isn't the same as being nowhere. Being lost is worse because there's the false hope that you might be found. "
15 " No. It's about me. It's the biggest secret of all so you can't, you can't, you can't tell Mom or anyone else okay?" I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear such a big secret. It might not fit in my head and then it would spill out everywhere. "
― Paul Tremblay
16 " Ideas. I'm possessed by ideas. Ideas that are as old as humanity, maybe older, right? Maybe those ideas were out there just floating around before us, just waiting to be thought up. Maybe we don't think them, we pluck them out from another dimension or another mind. "
17 " Being asked to read another writer’s rough draft is the literary equivalent of being asked to help a friend move a couch to a new place. "
18 " Not all gifts are easy to accept. The most important gifts are often the ones we wish with all our hearts to refuse. "
19 " Too many people have smiles that don’t mean what a smile is supposed to mean. Their smiles are often cruel and mocking, like how a bully’s grin is the same as a fist. "
20 " I sneak into your room when you are asleep, Merry-monkey. I’ve been doing it for weeks now, since the end of summer. You’re so pretty when you’re asleep. Last night, I pinched your nose shut until you opened your little mouth "
