Quotes by Cornell Woolrich - Page 1 | QuoteForever

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Time is strange. A moment can be as short as a breath, or as long as eternity.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Time
Long
Strange
Copy Quote
All guys are scared of each other, didn't you know that? I'm not the only one. We're all born afraid.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Fear
Guy
Scared
Copy Quote
It's just some instinct as old as fear: you seek the dark when you hide, you seek the light when the need to hide is gone. All the animals have it too.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Fear
Animal
Dark
Copy Quote
I had that trapped feeling, like some sort of a poor insect that you've put inside a downturned glass, and it tries to climb up the sides, and it can't, and it can't, and it can't.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Feelings
Glasses
Trying
Copy Quote
It was as simple as that - they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Beautiful
Life Changing
Simple
Copy Quote
You see, this would be a death by the imagination. And though the imagination feeds on phantoms, it needs a premise in reality to begin with. Then it can go on from there under its own power.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Fear
Imagination
Reality
Copy Quote
As for her perfume, it was the kind you only noticed after she'd left a room, not while she was still in it. Even then you didn't realize it was perfume, you only wondered what had made you think of her just then.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Kind
Rooms
Thinking
Copy Quote
Each unto himself has his own world that he looks out upon, and though someone else were to stand on the very selfsame inch of ground your feet were placed upon, guided by chalk marks, he would not see the same things you did.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Feet
Looks
World
Copy Quote
I was trying to cheat death. I was only trying to surmount for a little while the darkness that all my life I surely knew was going to come rolling in on me some day and obliterate me. I was only to stay alive a little brief while longer, after I was already gone.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Darkness
Rolling
Trying
Copy Quote
It's hard to say goodbye for good at any time or any place. It's harder still to say it through a meshed wire. It crisscrossed his face into little diagonals, gave me only little broken-up molecules of it at a time. It stenciled a cold, rigid frame around every kiss.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Broken
Goodbye
Kissing
Copy Quote
It seems so long ago that he was last afraid of anything. Seventeen, was he then? Eighteen? Sometimes he thinks he's missing a lot by being like this - fear gives life a fillip. He wonders how it is he lost it all, and what there is - if anything - ever to bring it back.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Fear
Long Ago
Thinking
Copy Quote
It isn't dying I'm afraid of, it isn't that at all; I know what it is to die, I've died already. It is the endless obliteration, the knowledge that there will never be anything else. That's what I can't stand, to try so hard and to end in nothing. You know what I mean, don't you? ... I really loved to write.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Dying
Mean
Writing
Copy Quote
Beside her, her husband could only splutter, and he stopped even that when she half turned to flash him a smile - the instinctive, brilliant smile of a woman who knows what feeble creatures men can be. You couldn't learn to smile like that. It was something a woman either knew the minute she was born, or never knew at all. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Men
Husband
Tonight
Copy Quote
Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his 'teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that no weapon, no jeopardy, no natural cataclysm, has ever been able to inspire until now. And now here it is running icily through him in the hot Chinese noon. Fear for the thing he loves, the only fear that can ever wholly cow the reckless and the brave.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Running
Fear
Brave
Copy Quote
I turned away from him and went on my way, up the street and about my business. The past was dead. The future was resignation, fatality, and could only end one way now. The present was numbness, that could feel nothing. Like Novocaine needled into your heart. What was there in all the dimensions of time for me? ("Life Is Weird Sometimes" first chapter of unpublished novel THE LOSER)
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Heart
Numbness
Past
Copy Quote
I think fear neutralizes alcohol, weakens its anesthetic power. It's good for small fears; your boss, your wife, your bills, your dentist; all right then to take a drink. But for big ones it doesn't do any good. Like water on blazing gasoline, it will only quicken and compound it. It takes sand, in the literal and the slang sense, to smother the bonfire that is fear. And if you're out of sand, then you must burn up.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Fear
Thinking
Water
Copy Quote
After she's gone, another brief lull sets in. This one is probably the last. But what good is a lull? It's only a breathing spell in which to get more frightened. Because anticipatory fear is always twice as strong as present fear. Anticipatory fear has both fears in it at once - the anticipatory one and the one that comes simultaneously with the dread happening itself. Present fear only has the one, because by that time anticipation is over.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Fear
Breathing
Strong
Copy Quote
The girl's face was the color of talcum. Her uncle's was a death mask, a bone structure overlaid by parchment. Shane's was granite, with a glistening line of sweat just below his hair line. He'd never forget this night, the detective knew, no matter what else happened for the rest of his life. They were all getting scars on their souls, the sort of scars people got in the Dark Ages, when they believed in devils and black magic. (Speak To Me Of Death)
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Girl
Uncles
Fear
Dark
Copy Quote
The preliminaries were out of the way, the creative process was about to begin. The creative process, that mystic life force, that splurge out of which has come the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, the Fantasie Impromptu, the Bayeux tapestries, Romeo and Juliet, the windows of Chartres Cathedral, Paradise Lost - and a pulp murder story by Dan Moody. The process is the same in all; if the results are a little uneven, that doesn't invalidate the basic similarity of origin.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Creative
Venus De Milo
Writing
Copy Quote
I rang the bell and she opened the door, dried her hands, and said heartily: 'Hello, stranger. I was just saying to Cliff only tonight, it's about time you showed up around here.' I wanted to detach him from her, but first I had to sit through about ten minutes of her. She was my sister, but you don't tell women things like I wanted to tell him. I don't know why, but you don't. You tell them the things you have under control; the things that you're frightened of, you tell other men if you tell anyone.
Cornell Woolrich / Novelist
Fear
Men
Doors
Copy Quote

Related Novelist Authors

Zoran Drvenkar
Novelist
Wednesday, Jul 19, 1967
Zia Haider Rahman
Novelist
Zelda Fitzgerald
Novelist
Tuesday, Jul 24, 1900
Wednesday, Mar 10, 1948
Zakes Mda
Novelist
Zadie Smith
Novelist
Saturday, Oct 25, 1975
Zachary Lazar
Novelist
Yxta Maya Murray
Novelist
Yury Olesha
Novelist
Friday, Mar 03, 1899
Tuesday, May 10, 1960
Yasutaka Tsutsui
Novelist
Monday, Sep 24, 1934
Yasmine Galenorn
Novelist
Xiaolu Guo
Novelist
Wu Cheng'en
Novelist
Wright Morris
Novelist
Thursday, Jan 06, 1910
Saturday, Apr 25, 1998
Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont
Novelist
Tuesday, May 07, 1867
Saturday, Dec 05, 1925
Witold Gombrowicz
Novelist
Thursday, Aug 04, 1904
Thursday, Jul 24, 1969

View All Novelist Quotes

Top Authors

John Muir
Author
Saturday, Apr 21, 1838
Thursday, Dec 24, 1914
Socrates
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Epictetus
Philosopher
Robin Williams
Actor
Saturday, Jul 21, 1951
Monday, Aug 11, 2014
John Keats
Poet
Saturday, Oct 31, 1795
Friday, Feb 23, 1821
Robert Frost
Poet
Thursday, Mar 26, 1874
Tuesday, Jan 29, 1963
George Carlin
Comedian
Wednesday, May 12, 1937
Sunday, Jun 22, 2008
Kobe Bryant
Basketball Player
Wednesday, Aug 23, 1978
Bob Marley
Singer
Tuesday, Feb 06, 1945
Monday, May 11, 1981
Benjamin Franklin
Founding Father Of The United States
Sunday, Jan 17, 1706
Saturday, Apr 17, 1790
Chanakya
Teacher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Julius Caesar
Roman Dictator
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Nelson Mandela
Former President Of South Africa
Thursday, Jul 18, 1918
Thursday, Dec 05, 2013
Tyler, The Creator
Rapper
Wednesday, Mar 06, 1991
Saint Augustine
Saint
Saturday, Nov 13, 0354
Wednesday, Aug 28, 0430

View All Authors

Share This Page