Robert Cormier Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

  Hurt, Lying, Mean

  Robert Cormier (2013). “Tenderness”, p.32, Delacorte Books for Young Readers

  14 Copy quote

• People always ask me about the role models that I'm providing for kids, and I say I can't be concerned with that. I'm not worrying about corrupting youth. I'm worrying about writing realistically and truthfully to affect the reader.

  Robert Cormier

  Kids, Writing, Role Models

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  7 Copy quote

• Salinger is such a terrific writer; he did so many great things. He is one of those writers that I still reread, simply because he makes me see the possibilities and makes me feel like writing. There are certain writers who put you in the mood to write. In the way a whiff of a cigar will bring back memories of a ballgame on a Saturday afternoon, reading Salinger makes me want to get to the typewriter.

  Robert Cormier

  Memories, Reading, Writing

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  6 Copy quote

• A novel must work as a story because no one's going to get to the other themes if you don't entertain the reader. But I like to have another layer of meaning, although you can read the book on one level and not bother with that other layer.

  Robert Cormier

  Book, Stories, Levels

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  5 Copy quote

• I don't like to think in terms of writing ten or twelve pages a day. Usually I'm writing a scene, and it's always with the idea, "I wonder what is going to happen." Or sometimes I write about something that affected me emotionally the day before and that I don't want to lose. I'm very unorganized at first; but finally it comes into a structure where consciously I'm working on a novel per se.

  Robert Cormier

  Writing, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Fire, White, Would Be

  Robert Cormier (2013). “Fade”, p.220, Delacorte Books for Young Readers

  7 Copy quote

• I use a lot of similes and metaphors when I work, simply because it's my best way of describing a building or a scene. I'm terrible at describing landscapes - trees, buildings. The inanimate things don't interest me: I always think, "Oh, no, here comes another building I have to describe." So I usually use a simile or metaphor.

  Robert Cormier

  Thinking, Tree, Use

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  4 Copy quote

• There is very little that is accidental in my work. I believe in serendipity for developments of plot, but the actual writing is arrived at by very hard work. The joy of writing doesn't mean that you don't get the backaches and headaches and the days when it's not coming.

  Robert Cormier

  Believe, Writing, Mean

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  7 Copy quote

• When you get the ideas, that's a thrill; when you're writing the book and it's corning out well, that's a thrill; when you finish it and other people read it, that's a thrill. There are going to be reviews, of course; not everyone's going to love it. You feel sort of naked and vulnerable in a way. That's just a minor part of the process, really. If you can't take that part, you shouldn't be in the business. But there are so many joys to writing.

  Robert Cormier

  Book, Writing, Ideas

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Cormier

  Book, Creativity, Mean

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Cormier

  Book, School, Kids

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Cormier

  Book, Writing, News Stories

  Robert Cormier (2013). “I Am the Cheese”, p.120, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  7 Copy quote

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

  Robert Cormier

  Inspirational, Teenager, Teens

  Interview with Lyn Gardner, www.theguardian.com. November 05, 2000.

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  House, Needs, Invisible

  Robert Cormier (2013). “The Chocolate War”, p.31, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  4 Copy quote

• I read a lot of detective stories because they always deliver. They give you a beginning, a middle, and an end - a resolution. The modern novels I read don't always deliver because I'm looking essentially for a story. As in Shakespeare, "The play's the thing." In particular I read detective stories for pacing, plot and suspense.

  Robert Cormier

  Modern Novel, Play, Giving

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  7 Copy quote

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

  Robert Cormier

  Pain, Doe, Intensity

  Robert Cormier (2013). “Tenderness”, p.34, Delacorte Books for Young Readers

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Mother, Sadness, Way

  Robert Cormier (2013). “The Chocolate War”, p.172, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  4 Copy quote

• I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations.

  Robert Cormier

  Real, People, Situation

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Beach, Sadness, Leaving

  8 Copy quote

• Affection is one of the most neglected words in the English language, that people throw the word love around like confetti when they mean affection.

  Robert Cormier

  Mean, People, Affection

  "Tenderness".

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Cormier

  Writing, School, Unique

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Beach, Men, Thinking

  Robert Cormier (2013). “The Chocolate War”, p.196, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  7 Copy quote

• It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.

  Robert Cormier

  Body, Matter, Bigs

  Robert Cormier (2013). “The Chocolate War”, p.188, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Nice, Solitude, Would Be

  5 Copy quote

• I'm not a reader of young adult fiction for the simple reason that these novelists are writing for adolescents, so they are not writing for me.

  Robert Cormier

  Writing, Simple, Fiction

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  4 Copy quote

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