I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.
My dream was to be known as a writer and to be able to produce at least one book that would be read by people. That dream came true with the publication of my first novel – and all the rest has been a sweet bonus.
I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don’t think about how old they are.
You seldom get a censorship attempt from a 14-year-old boy. It’s the adults who get upset.
There are no taboos. Every topic is open, however shocking. It is the way that the topics are handled that’s important, and that applies whether it is a 15-year-old who is reading your book or someone who is 55.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t trying to get something down on paper.
I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations.
I’ve had aunts and uncles who not only haven’t read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer.
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.
Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?
She discovered how distant pity was from hate, how very far it was from love.
Do I dare disturb the universe? Yes I do, I do. I think.
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.
Happiness is a way of traveling and not a destination.
Nothing glamorous like the write-ups in the papers or the newsreels. We weren’t heroes. We were only there...
My wife likes to say there are two kinds of people, those chasing pleasure and those running from pain. Maybe she’s right, I don’t know. What I do know is this: Pleasure helps you forget. But pain, pain forces you to hope. You tell yourself this can’t last. Today could be different. Today something just might change.
Archie believed in always doing the smart thing. Not the thing you ached to do, not the impulsive act, but the thing that would pay off later.
A smile for all the stupid people out there with bleeding hearts for serial killers.
Was this all there was to life, after all? You finished school, found an occupation, got married, became a father, watched your wife die, and then lived through days and nights that seemed to have no sunrises, no dawns and no dusks, nothing but a gray drabness.
They tell you to do your thing but they don’t mean it. They don’t want you to do your own thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too. It’s a laugh, Goober, a fake. Don’t disturb the universe, Goober, no matter what the posters say.
I don’t laugh very much,” he said, realizing the truth of the statement as he made it, this sudden bit of knowledge disturbing him.