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Cornell Woolrich QUOTES

Cornell Woolrich QUOTES

141 " Take it easy," he jeered, "relax. I used to be a sailor. You'll never get out of them knots, buddy. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Literary Noir: A Series of Suspense: Volume Three

142 " Fisher just stood there lost in thought, without saying anything. There is always a rational explanation for everything in this world - whether it's the true one or not. Maybe it is better so. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight") "

― Cornell Woolrich , The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich (Alternatives SF Series)

143 " She is in full delirium. But delirium is the antithesis of death; it is the body's
struggle to survive. ("Jane Brown's Body") "

― Cornell Woolrich , The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich (Alternatives SF Series)

144 " Roses die, candles go out, tears dry. The memory of the page outlasts them all. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Blues of a Lifetime: The Autobiography of Cornell Woolrich

145 " She was familiar with the stage management of this particular entryway, knew just how to get the most out of it. Knew just how long to stand motionless, and then resume progress down into the room. Knew how to kill him. Or, since she'd already done that pretty successfully, perhaps I'd better say, knew how to give him the shot of adrenalin that would bring him back to life, so that she could kill him all over again. To be in love with her as he was, I couldn't help thinking, must be a continuous succession of death throes. Without any final release. I imagined I could feel his wrist, hidden behind me, bounce a little, from a quickened pulse. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Literary Noir: A Series of Suspense: Volume One

146 " could feel his eyes on me, studying me from close range, and finally I chose to become aware, said: “What are you looking at me for like that?” “I’m trying to think what to call you.” “Isn’t it a little late for that?” “There’s something about Alberta; it’s too stiff; it doesn’t ride easily on the tongue. Do you remember the night we first met? I told you I’d give that up after a week, and it’s long past that now. I have to find some name for you. Some name of my own. Stand up and let me look at you. I’ll see if I can get one. "

― Cornell Woolrich , The Black Angel

147 " I could have constructed a timetable of their comings and goings, their daily habits and activities....

The chain of little habits that were their lives unreeled themselves. They were all bound in them tighter than the tightest straitjacket any jailer ever devised, though they all thought themselves free....

The first link, of the so-strong chain of habits, of custom, that binds us all, had snapped wide open. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Rear Window

148 " No one, good, bad or indifferent. If it’s gangs you’re thinking of you can drop that angle right now. He wasn’t that kind; he didn’t have the time. Know what that kid was doing? Working nights at the hotel, sleeping mornings, helping me out in the shop afternoons, and going to night school three times a week in the bargain! The couple of evenings he had left over he usually took his girl to the movies. He was no slouch, he wanted to get somewhere. And now look at him!” I turned away. “If they’d only broken his leg, or knocked out his teeth, or anything — anything but what they did do! I’m going home and drink myself to sleep, I can’t stand thinking about it any more. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Walls That Hear You

149 " The only kind of questions he could answer were those that took “yes” or “no” for an answer — by shaking his head up and down or from side to side — and that limited them to about one out of every ten that they wanted to put to him. I saw red when I saw how helpless he was. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Walls That Hear You

150 " Being broke didn't seem so awful as it had yesterday, being broke but being at peace with the world.

("Don't Wait Up For Me Tonight") "

― Cornell Woolrich , Violence

151 " Instead of questioning him directly any more, they had him spell out what he wanted to say letter by letter, Deadpan pointing them out on the chart and Kane jotting them down on a piece of paper — providing Eddie nodded yes — until he had complete words and sentences made up out of them. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Walls That Hear You

152 " Strange is loneliness; it still longs to have something to belong to, some group, some aggregate. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Blues of a Lifetime: The Autobiography of Cornell Woolrich

153 " thing within him that cried Kill, kill, kill. It wanted to get the two of them, and nothing short of that would do. And if he and she had had a five-year-old kid, say, he would have included the kid in the holocaust too, although a kid that age obviously couldn't be guilty of anything. A doctor would have known what to make of this, and would have phoned a hospital in a hurry. But unfortunately doctors aren't mind-readers and people don't go around with their thoughts placarded on sandwich-boards. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Literary Noir: A Series of Suspense: Volume Three

154 " The bathroom door had a mirror on the outside of it, and I saw his face in that as he went by. It was evil, repulsive; you could tell by his face that his reason was slowly crumbling. He had his mouth open as if he was panting for air. The black beard, short as it was, made him look a little bit like an ape standing on its hind legs. He kept going back and forth, carrying clothes out of the closet. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Walls That Hear You

155 " HE HAD SIGNED her own death-warrant. He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame, she had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew there was one. He had known for six weeks now. Little things had told him. One day he came home and there was a cigar-butt in an ashtray, still moist at one end, still warm at the other. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Literary Noir: A Series of Suspense: Volume Three

156 " She passed through them without a glance. The living have no time to look at death; they cannot see it even if they try. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Black Alibi

157 " That which is so universal as death must be a blessing. And none may escape its benediction. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Black Alibi

158 " One sometimes kills for the love of it. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Black Alibi

159 " You are a sweet little thing. You are the morning sunlight in my dreary afternoon sky. It is not that you would do anything so unforgivable. It is just that there is a way of doing things that is right and a way that is wrong. You are young, and the world is old. When you are a few years older, I don’t want you to have to look back on anything lacking in dignity, in which you cut a ridiculous figure. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Black Alibi

160 " No doubt about it. We’ve made a preliminary examination, and I don’t even think we’ll have to resort to blood transfusion. What saved him more than anything else were the makeshift bandages that were found on him. If it hadn’t been for them he’d have been a goner long before he was picked up.” This went over my head at the time. I didn’t understand. I thought he meant their own bandages, the hospital’s. "

― Cornell Woolrich , Walls That Hear You