Richard Bachman Quotes & Sayings

He was a heavy breather. You could hear him puffing and blowing into the mike up there like some large and sweaty animal. I don't like that, never have. My father is like that on the telephone. A lot of heavy breathing in your ear, so you can almost smell the scotch and Pall Malls on his breath. It always seems unsanitary and somehow homosexual. — Richard Bachman

The apartment was haunted by the ghost of long-departed cabbage. — Richard Bachman

It just ... it seems hard to say anything that isn't the wrong thing. — Richard Bachman

That was Dad's life, and I was the birdshit on his windshield. — Richard Bachman

I went over to where Ted was leaning against the green cinderblock wall. He was sitting with his legs splayed out below the bulletin board, which was full of notices from the Mathematical Society of America, which nobody ever read, Peanuts comic strips (the acme of humor, in the late Mrs. Underwood's estimation), and a poster showing Bertrand Russell and a quote: "Gravity alone proves the existence of God." But any undergraduate in creation could have told Bertrand that it has been conclusively proved that there is no gravity; the earth just sucks. — Richard Bachman

We are going to understand all about the difference between people and pieces of paper in a file, and the difference between doing your job and getting jobbed ... — Richard Bachman

The deal is this. You be the hero. Come down here. Unarmed. Come inside with your hands on your head. I'll let everybody go. Then I'll blow your fucking head off. Sir. How's that for a deal? You buy it? — Richard Bachman

You think just knowing about death will keep you from dying? — Richard Bachman

The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death. — Richard Bachman

Another time, another place. — Richard Bachman

Sometimes the gods give you a break. — Richard Bachman

Memories are contrary things; if you quit chasing them and turn your back, they often return on their own. — Richard Bachman

He watched his feet, the only things that were keeping him from finding out if there really was a Kingdom of Heaven or not. — Richard Bachman

He touched McVries's shoulders, setting him straight again. McVries looked up at him sleepily and smiled. No, Ray. It's time to sit down. — Richard Bachman

Now the only way out is straight up to Heaven. — Richard Bachman

Things hurt more when you were alone, that was all. — Richard Bachman

For no reason at all, I thought of New Year's Eve, when all those people crowd into Times Square and scream like jackals as the lighted ball slides down the pole, ready to shed its thin party glare on three hundred and sixty-five new days in this best of all possible worlds. I have always wondered what it would be like to be caught in one of those crowds, screaming and not able to hear your own voice, your individuality momentarily wiped out and replaced with the blind empathic overslop of the crowd's lurching, angry anticipation, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder with no one in particular. — Richard Bachman

EXPLOSIVE IN MY COAT POCKET - THE VARIETY THEY CALL BLACK IRISH. TWELVE POUNDS IS ENOUGH TO TAKE OUT EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WITHIN A THIRD OF A MILE AND PROBABLY ENOUGH TO EXPLODE THE JETPORT FUEL STORAGE TANKS. IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS — Richard Bachman

When everything is at its worst, your mind just throws it all into the wastebasket and goes to Florida for a little while. There is a sudden electric what-the-hell glow as you stand there looking back over your shoulder at the bridge you just burnt down. — Richard Bachman

Crowd was to be pleased. Crowd was to be worshipped and feared. Ultimately, Crowd was to be made sacrifice unto. — Richard Bachman

Two years ago. To the best of my recollection, that was about the time I started to lose my mind. — Richard Bachman

Just go on dancing with me like this forever, Garraty, and I'll never tire. We'll scrape our shoes on the stars and hang upside down from the moon. — Richard Bachman

The reason all of this is so horrible," McVries said, "is because it's just trivial. You know? We've sold ourselves and traded our souls on trivialities. — Richard Bachman

She had done it. O, amazing grace. The woman had looked into the abyss and then walked out across it. No net. No way back. Amazing. — Richard Bachman

Herk threw up the mouse, the hamburger he'd eaten for lunch, and some pasty glop that looked like tomato soup. He was just starting to ask his mother what was going on when she threw up. And there, in all that puke, that old dead mouse didn't look bad at all. It sure looked better than the rest of the stuff. — Richard Bachman

The longer you went without speaking, the harder it gets to break the silence. — Richard Bachman

The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing. — Richard Bachman

We'll all be glad to see you die. No one's going to miss you, Gary. Maybe I'll walk behind you and spit on your brains after they blow them all over the road. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe we all will. It — Richard Bachman

Olson sat up. He put his hands against his belly and stared calmly at the poised soldiers on the deck of the squat vehicle. the soldiers stared back. 'You bastards!' McVries sobbed. 'You bloody bastards!' Olson began to get up. Another volley of bullets drove him flat again. Now there was a sound from behind Garraty. He didn't have to turn his head to know it was Stebbins. Stebbins was laughing softly. Olson sat up again. The guns were still trained on him, but the soldiers did not shoot. Their silhouettes on the halftrack seemed almost to indicate curiosity. Slowly, reflectively, Olson gained his feet, hands crossed on his belly. He seemed to sniff the air for direction, turned slowly in the direction of the Walk, and began to stagger along. — Richard Bachman

None of us really has anything to lose. That makes it easier to give away. — Richard Bachman

Blaze himself was pretty sure he himself was going to hell, as were most other people. It was a dirty world, and the longer you lived, the dirtier you got. — Richard Bachman

Do you know why they call me the Count? Because I love to count! Ah-hah-hah!
- The Count Sesame Street — Richard Bachman

He was going to make this happen. His feet and his head was set, and when he got that way, he always did what he said he was going to do. It was his pride. The only one he had. — Richard Bachman

If people just took it a day at a time, they'd be a lot happier. — Richard Bachman

Sanity:
You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all, sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that ...
I think; therefore I am. There are hairs on my face; therefore I shave. My wife and child have been critically injured in a car crash; therefore I pray. It's all logical, it's all sane.
... there's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror ... You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane.
... No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that.
... I'm the sane one. — Richard Bachman

Craziness is only a matter of degree, and there are lots of people besides me who have the urge to roll heads. They go to stock-car races and the horror movies and the wrestling matches they have in Portland Expo. Maybe what she said smacked of all those things, but I admired her for saying out loud, all the same
the price of honesty is always high. She had an admirable grasp of the fundamentals. Besides, she was tiny and pretty. — Richard Bachman

If there is an after, I hope it's not dark. And I hope you can remember. I'd hate to wander around in the dark forever, not knowing who I was or what I was doin' here, or not even knowing that I'd ever had anything different. — Richard Bachman

They got that way, Garraty had noticed. Complete withdrawal from everything and everyone around them. Everything but the road. They stared at the road with a kind of horrid fascination, as if it were a tightrope thay had to walk over an endless, bottomless chasm. — Richard Bachman

Mr. Grace sounded like a very small child, helpless, hopeless. I had made him fuck himself with his own big tool, like one of those weird experiences you read about in the Penthouse Forum. I had taken off his witch doctor's mask and made him human. But I didn't hold it against him. To err is only human, but it's divine to forgive. I believe that sincerely. — Richard Bachman

All places are the same unless your mind changes. There's no magic place to get your mind right. If you feel like shit, everything you see looks like shit. — Richard Bachman

You were starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel for a while there, — Richard Bachman

They're animals, all right. But why are you so sure that makes us human beings? — Richard Bachman

How many you or I have outlasted doesn't matter, I think. There comes a time when the will just runs out. Doesn't matter what I think, see? — Richard Bachman

He left Molie's at ten past midnight, twelve hundred New Dollars lighter. The pawnbroker had also sold him a limited but fairly effective disguise: gray hair, spectacles, mouth wadding, plastic buck-teeth which subtly transfigured his lip line. "Give yourself a little limp, too," Molie advised. "Not a big attention-getter. Just a little one. Remember, you have the power to cloud men's minds, if you use it. Don't remember that line, do ya?" Richards didn't. — Richard Bachman

If you think someone is seriously on the prod for your ass, it keeps you awake. — Richard Bachman

Which one hadn't he walked down? Was it Barkovitch? Collie Parker? Percy What'shisname? Who was it? 'GARRATY!' the crowd screamed deliriously. 'GARRATY, GARRATY, GARRATY!'
Was it Scramm? Gribble? Davidson? A hand on his shoulder. Garraty shook it off impatiently. The dark figure beckoned, beckoned in the rain, beckoned for him to come and walk, to come and play the game. And it was time to get started. There was still so far to walk. — Richard Bachman

You've got a shitty habit, you know it? I've noticed it on all those TV drive-safely pitches that you do. You breathe in people's ears. You sound like a stallion in heat, Philbrick. That's a shitty habit. You also sound like you're reading off a teleprompter, even when you're not. You ought to take care of stuff like that. You might save a life. — Richard Bachman

You're on, Ted," I told him. "Your big chance, boy. Don't blow it. Folks, this kid is going to dance his balls off before your very eyes. — Richard Bachman

He wondered how far his legs would carry him on their own - how long before his brain took over them and began punishing them, making them work past any sane limit, to keep a bullet from crashing into its own bony cradle. — Richard Bachman

turnpike itself. Garraty — Richard Bachman

Lunacy is when you can't see the seams where they stitched the world together anymore. — Richard Bachman

Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once. — Richard Bachman

Then you can blame it on your parents,' I said, smiling. 'Won't that be a relief? — Richard Bachman

July disappeared wherever used months go. Then half of August. Soon summer would be over. — Richard Bachman

You can't always understand something just because you did it. — Richard Bachman

You'll be given a tape machine which is about the size of a box of popcorn. It weighs six pounds. With it, you'll be given sixty tape clips which are about four inches long. The equipment will fit inside a coat pocket without a bulge. It's a triumph of modern technology. — Richard Bachman