Robert McCammon Quotes & Sayings

Rain fell on the roofs of the just and the unjust, the saints and the sinners, those who knew peace and those in torment, and tomorrow began at a dark hour. — Robert McCammon

The devil is my strawberry! — Robert McCammon

It's funny, sometimes, when you look at the people who brought you into this world and you see yourself so clearly in them. — Robert McCammon

But life is just as much pain and mess as it is joy and order. Probably a lot more mess than order, too. — Robert McCammon

Where you live ain't important," he said. "It's what ... lives in you. — Robert McCammon

After years of having a dog, you know him. You know the meaning of his snuffs and grunts and barks. Every twitch of the ears is a question or statement, every wag of the tail is an exclamation. — Robert McCammon

The sharp white steeple of the Hawthorne First Baptist Church stuck up through the leafless trees like an admonishing finger. — Robert McCammon

There is nothing more cruel in this world than a young savage with a chip on his shoulder and anger in his soul. — Robert McCammon

The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It's not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don't know its happening until one day you feel you've lost something but you're not sure what it is. It's like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you 'sir'. It just happens. — Robert McCammon

Jesus Christ was as perfect as a human bein' can be, yet he got mad and fought and wept and had days of feelin' like he couldn't go on another step. Like when the lepers and the sick folks almost trampled him down, all of 'em beggin' for miracles and doggin' him till he was about miracled out. What I'm sayin', Mr. Mackenson, is that even Jesus Christ needed help sometimes, and he wasn't too proud to ask for it. — Robert McCammon

I realized all prisons were not buildings of gray rock bordered by guard towers and barbed wire. Some prisons were houses whose closed blinds let no sunlight enter. Some prisons were cages of fragile bones, and some prisons had bars of red polka dots. In fact, you could never tell what might be a prison until you'd had a glimpse of what was seized and bound inside. — Robert McCammon

Yes, there was music after all. The sound of the swamp rose up to him. The sound of frogs and crickets, of birds and 'gators, of life in every puddle and pond and knothole and leaf. I Travel By Night — Robert McCammon

I understood then what courage is all about. It is loving someone else more than you love yourself. — Robert McCammon

They may look grown-up," she continued, "but it's a disguise. It's just the clay of time. Men and women are still children deep in their hearts. They still would like to jump and play, but that heavy clay won't let them. They'd like to shake off every chain the world's put on them, take off their watches and neckties and Sunday shoes and return naked to the swimming hole, if just for one day. They'd like to feel free, and know that there's a momma and daddy at home who'll take care of things and love them no matter what. Even behind the face of the meanest man in the world is a scared little boy trying to wedge himself into a corner where he can't be hurt. — Robert McCammon

Johnny ate encyclopedias like any other kid might eat Red Hots or Lemonheads. — Robert McCammon

His hair was think and curly and reddish-brown, his eyes a clear ice blue; Ramona had told him many times that she could see the sky in them, clouds when he was angry and rain when he was sad. Now, if she had looked into his eyes closely enough, she might've seen the approaching storm. — Robert McCammon

The demons almost got me! But glory be to Jesus, and when he arrives on his flying saucer from the planet Jupiter I'll be there on the golden shore to kiss his hand! — Robert McCammon

Remember everything and anything. Don't you go through a day without remembering something of it, and tucking that memory away like a treasure. Because it is. and memories are sweet doors, Cory. They're teachers and friends and disciplinarians. When you look at something don't just look. See it. Really, really see it. See it so when you write it down, somebody else can see it too. — Robert McCammon

The thing about pain is, it teaches you humility — Robert McCammon

We ran like young wild furies,
where angels feared to tread.
The woods were dark and deep.
Before us demons fled.
We checked Coke bottle bottoms
to see how far was far.
Our worlds of magic wonder
were never reached by car.
We loved our dogs like brothers,
our bikes like rocket ships.
We were going to the stars,
to Mars we'd make round trips.
We swung on vines like Tarzan,
and flashed Zorro's keen blade.
We were James Bond in his Aston,
we were Hercules unchained.
We looked upon the future
and we saw a distant land,
where our folks were always ageless,
and time was shifting sand.
We filled up life with living,
with grins, scabbed knees, and noise.
In glass I see an older man,
but this book's for the boys. — Robert McCammon

Put one foot forward and the other will get you to where you are going~!" Bag Lady, Swan Song — Robert McCammon

Trouble is, at my age, most all my dreams are reruns. — Robert McCammon

Maybe crazy is what they call anybody who's got magic in them after they're no longer a child. — Robert McCammon

... some wounds refuse the remedy of time. — Robert McCammon

Even the most worthless thing in the world can be beautiful, it just takes the right touch — Robert McCammon

Just shattered structures rising up like rotten teeth from a diseased jaw. — Robert McCammon

I had discovered that being a writer gave you a lot of license to fiddle with the truth, but I'd better not get into the habit of it. — Robert McCammon

The time for witticisms is over and the time for wits beginning. If — Robert McCammon

God has a sense of humor that gets my goat sometimes. — Robert McCammon

into the cell, put the basket down upon the magistrate's — Robert McCammon

If you were my girlfriend I would give you a hundred lightning bugs in a green glass jar, so you could always see your way. I would give you a meadow full of wildflowers, where no two blooms would ever be alike. I would give you my bicycle, with its golden eye to protect you. I would write a story for you, and make you a princess who lived in a white marble castle. If you would only like me, I would give you magic. If you would only like me. — Robert McCammon

That's where they make the books by the hundreds of thousands, and each one is a child different and special and some walk tall and some are crippled, but they all go out into the world from there. — Robert McCammon

Hold onto the magic of being a boy( ... ) once you lose it you are always begging to find it again. — Robert McCammon

All hate does is breed more hate. — Robert McCammon

Somethin in me has been set free from a cage I never knew was there. It flies with Yellachile at night, and we go together on the wind. — Robert McCammon

Grigsby had looked at him askance. "Why is it," he said, "that I have the distinct impression you're not surprised by this news?"
'Surprised by the fact that the reverend is first and foremost a human being? Surprised by the fact that every human being, reverend or ribald, can be undone by capricious circumstances? Or should
I be surprised by the fact that a man who teaches love and forgiveness can love and forgive? Tell me, Marmy, exactly what it is I should be surprised at? — Robert McCammon

Twas said better to light a candle than curse the dark ... — Robert McCammon

That in this town prostitutes may give sewing lessons to ladies of the church, pirates my be consulted for their opinions on seaworth by shipbuilders, Christians and Jews may stroll together on a Sunday, and Indians my play dice games with leatherstockings, but let one silver piece fall in a crack between two members of the same profession and it's bloody war. — Robert McCammon

Well, look around. Just look. Have you ever considered the possibility that God might be insane?" Tears — Robert McCammon

We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. — Robert McCammon

Josh Hutchins's battered old Pontiac gave a wheeze like an old man with phlegm in his lungs. — Robert McCammon

My lip healed. So did my head. My pride stayed bruised, though, and my confidence was fractured. Those injuries, the ones that didn't show, I would have to live with. — Robert McCammon

The same river can never be crossed twice. The flowing water has no memory of footprints. — Robert McCammon

Better not to walk upon a garden made of quicksand. — Robert McCammon

Friends. They really know how to knock you off your pedestal, don't they? — Robert McCammon

How many times had he felt alone at midnight, with the hard dark pressing in and no sign of morning? Many times before, and with luck he would survive this one as he had survived the others. No, he decided. With more than luck. With every skill of reasoning and power of concentration he had. That, plus some good old fashioned lowdown strength of will. — Robert McCammon

It seemed to me that there were two worlds: one before the sun, and one after. And if that were true, then maybe there were people who were citizens of those different worlds as well. Some moved easily through the landscape of night, and others clung to the bright hours. — Robert McCammon

There're stranger things on this earth than we can ever figure out if we had a hundred lifetimes. — Robert McCammon

Sometimes thinking gets in the way of doing. — Robert McCammon

I couldn't picture heaven. How could a place be any good at all if it didn't have the things there you enjoyed doing? If there were no comic books, no monster movies, no bikes, and no country roads to ride them on? No swimming pools, no ice cream, no summer, or barbecue on the Fourth of July? No thunderstorms, and front porches on which to sit and watch them coming? Heaven sounded to me like a library that only held books about one certain subject, yet you had to spend eternity and eternity and eternity reading them. What was heaven without typewriter paper and a magic box? — Robert McCammon

Writer? Author? Storyteller, that's what I decided to be. — Robert McCammon

See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God's sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they'd allowed to wither in themselves. — Robert McCammon

I'd like to be everybody in the world' I said. 'I'd like to live a million times.'
'Well'
and here my father gave one of his sagely nods
'that would be a fine piece of magic, wouldn't it? — Robert McCammon

No one ever grows up. They may look grown-up, but it's just the clay of time. Men and women are still children deep in their hearts. Mrs. Neville — Robert McCammon

The man don't find Satan. Satan finds the man. — Robert McCammon

It was a feeling in the crisp twilight air; it was a hush across the hills. The ghosts were gathering themselves, building up their strength to wander the fields of October and speak to those who would listen. — Robert McCammon

A ninety-two-year-old man has to open a lot of locks to recall a day when he was nine years old. — Robert McCammon

Keep America Beautiful, he thought, Kill a Scarface Today. He — Robert McCammon

There is something about nature out of control that touches a primal terror. We are used to believing that we're the masters of our domain, and that God has given us this earth to rule over. We need this illusion like a good night-light. The truth is more fearsome: we are as frail as young trees in tornadoes, and our beloved homes are one flood away from driftwood. We plant our roots in trembling earth, we live where mountains rose and fell and prehistoric seas burned away in mist. We and the towns we have built are not permanent; the earth itself is a passing train. When you stand in muddy water that is rising toward your waist and you hear people shouting against the darkness and see their figures struggling to hold back the currents that will not be denied, you realize the truth of it: we will not win, but we cannot give up. — Robert McCammon

I had always wondered what Reverend Lovoy meant when he talked about "grace." I understood it now. It was being able to give up something that it broke your heart to lose, and be happy about it. — Robert McCammon

Right." He smiled bitterly. "Well, look around. Just look. Have you ever considered the possibility that God might be insane? — Robert McCammon

All us kids had found out by now that all teachers had a sore spot; some went crazy over gum chewing, others insane over behind-the-back giggles, still others nuts over the repeated squeaking and scuffing of shoes on the linoleum. Machine-gun coughs, donkeylike snorts, a fusillade of throat clearing, spitballs stuck to the blackboard: all these were arsenals in the battle against Hitlerian teachers. — Robert McCammon

And as she'd watched him stagger away Swan had realized that forgiveness crippled evil, drew the poison from it like lancing a boil. — Robert McCammon

Everybody needs to know where they've been, it seems to me. Not just blackskins, but whiteskins, too. Seems to me if a person loses the past, he can't find the future either. Which is what this place is all about. — Robert McCammon

It was like carrying a rabbit's foot or throwing salt over your shoulder if you happened to spill any; these things were part of the grain and texture of life, and better to do them than not, just in case God's ways were more mysterious than we Christians could grasp. — Robert McCammon

I wanted no souvenirs of tragedy. — Robert McCammon

It seemed to Billy that no matter how far you walked, you never really got to the end of things. — Robert McCammon

SPIIIIIDERS!" The world ceased its turning. The owl went dumb. The Milky Way flickered on the verge of extinction. Ben hollered it again: "Spiders!" He started thrashing wildly amid the pine needles. "They're all over me! — Robert McCammon

We all three were struck with the kind of horror that makes you want to dig a hole, jump in, and pull the hole in after you. — Robert McCammon

Love strong and true can get you through a lot of dookey. And I'm here to tell you, honey, you got to walk through many fields of dookey to get to be my age. — Robert McCammon

You ought to write a real book, Rix. You know, something that could really happen. That horror shit is junk. Why don't you write a book you'd be proud to sign your real name to? — Robert McCammon

This is where I think the writing started. The "righting," if you will. The righting of circumstances, the shaping of the world the way it should have been, had God not had crossed eyes and buck teeth. In the real world I had no power; in my world I was Hercules unchained. — Robert McCammon

Death cannot be known. It cannot be befriended. If Death were a boy, he would be a lonely figure, standing at the playground's edge while the air rippled with other children's laughter. If Death were a boy, he would walk alone. He would speak in a whisper and his eyes would be haunted by knowledge no human can bear. — Robert McCammon

Wearily, she sat up. Jesus was not coming today. She would have to die later, she decided. There was no use lying out here like a fool in the rain. One step, she thought. One step and then the next gets you where you're going. — Robert McCammon

If ... if you were God ... would you destroy this world?" Hannan — Robert McCammon

He listened to the keening of the wind whistling through holes in the walls, and he pondered the thought that there might be something out there in the dark - God or Devil or something more elemental than either - that looked at humankind as Josh had viewed the roach - less than intelligent, certainly nasty, but struggling onward on its journey, never giving up, fighting through obstacles or going around them, doing whatever it had to do to survive. And he hoped that if the time ever came for that elemental fist to come crashing down, its wielder might take a moment of pause as well. — Robert McCammon

Here is my room, in the yellow lamplight and the space heater rumbling: Indian rug red as Cochise's blood, a desk with seven mystic drawers, a chair covered in material as velvety blue-black as Batman's cape, an aquarium holding tiny fish so pale you could see their hearts beat, the aforementioned dresser covered with decals from Revell model airplane kits, a bed with a quilt sewn by a relative of Jefferson Davis's, a closet, and the shelves, oh, yes, the shelves. The troves of treasure. On those shelves are stacks of me: hundreds of comic books- Justice League, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, the Spirit, Blackhawk, Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, Aquaman, and the Fantastic Four ... The shelves go on for miles and miles. My collection of marbles gleams in a mason jar. My dried cicada waits to sing again in the summer. My Duncan yo-yo that whistles except the string is broken and Dad's got to fix it. — Robert McCammon

Johnny James was sitting on the front porch, sipping from a glass of gasoline in the December heat, when the doom-screamer came. — Robert McCammon

It is a contradiction this creek- a hundred thousand years old but renewed with each rainfall. — Robert McCammon

You don't have to come here to see them, Cory. Or to see me, either. You really don't. You don't have to leave what is, to visit what was. — Robert McCammon

...hot shouts of neon... — Robert McCammon

You just give folks a key, and they can rightly open their own locks. — Robert McCammon

No doubt about it, summer was on the wane. The mornings seemed a shade cooler. The nights were hungry, and ate more daylight. — Robert McCammon

Don't be in a hurry to grow up. Hold on to being a boy as long as you can, because once you lose that magic, you're always begging to find it again. — Robert McCammon

It wasn't that he couldn't fight when he had to, it was just that he knew when to fight and when not to fight. — Robert McCammon

This was not Mr. Sears talking, not really; this was the voice of what the flask flayed raw and bloody inside his soul, what it stomped and kicked and tortured until the voice had to scream for release. — Robert McCammon

I was never afraid of my monsters. I controlled them. I slept with them in the dark, and they never stepped beyond their boundaries. My monsters had never asked to be bora with bolts in their necks, scaly wings, blood hunger in their veins, or deformed faces from which beautiful girls shrank back in horror. My monsters were not evil; they were simply trying to survive in a tough old world. They reminded me of myself and my friends: ungainly, unlovely, beaten but not conquered. They were the outsiders searching for a place to belong in a cataclysm of villagers' torches, amulets, crucifixes, silver bullets, radiation bombs, air force jets, and flamethrowers. They were imperfect, and heroic in their suffering. — Robert McCammon

I tell you, shoes are important! Where would people be without shoes? Now, — Robert McCammon

Seems to me a writer gets to hold a lot of keys," she said. "Gets to visit a lot of worlds and live in a lot of skins. Seems to me a writer has a chance to live forever, if he's good and if he's lucky. — Robert McCammon

You never know how things are gonna turn out, though, and that's the truth. You aim for one place, sure as an arrow, but before you hit the mark, the wind gets you. I don't believe I ever met one person who became what they wanted to be when they were your age." "I'd like to be everybody in the world," I said. "I'd like to live a million times. — Robert McCammon

That's one problem about relating events in first person. The reader knows the narrator didn't get killed. — Robert McCammon

Those who babble the Lord's Prayer day and night would be the first to grin when I'm set afire. — Robert McCammon

The magic place of soul-soothing dreams, where the silken sheen of polished glass under soft lights made her think of how lovely Heaven was going to be. — Robert McCammon

But who ever said everybody gets a happy ending? — Robert McCammon

This was a dank, sinister chill: the chill of shadows where poison toadstools grown, their ruddy colors beckoning a child to come, come take a taste of candy. — Robert McCammon

I never knew what hate really was until I thought of somebody wrapping up a bomb and putting it in a church on a Sunday morning to kill little girls. — Robert McCammon

He was a scream wrapped up in straw, a little, weak, vicious thing gnashing inside a monstrous facade ... — Robert McCammon

What would describe it? What word in the English language would speak of youth and hope and freedom and desire, of sweet wanderlust and burning blood? What word describes the brotherhood of buddies, and the feeling that as long as the music plays, you are part of that tough, rambling breed who will inherit the earth? — Robert McCammon

Many times you will fail. That is the nature of the world, and the truth of life. But when you find your horse again, will go back or will you go forward? — Robert McCammon

Both of my grandfathers had voices like bullfrogs battling in a swamp pond. — Robert McCammon