Quotes by Cornell Woolrich

“It was male, of course; menace is always male. ("Nightmare")”

“...all a guy can do is die once. The big difference is whether he dies clean - or dirty... ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")”

“It takes will power and nerve to hold the stick that way, to keep his eyes open and watch the rocky face of the cliff, pine-bearded, rush up at them. O'Shaughnessy's mouth flattens, his face goes w...”

“Then without any warning the car stopped. They were there."The ride's over," someone said. "End of the ride."For a moment nobody got out. They just sat there. The driver cut the ignition, and after...”

“A second red-orange spearhead leaps straight at O'Shaughnessy. The whole world seems to stand still. Then the gun behind it crashes, and there's a cataclysm of pain all over him, and a shock goes t...”

“Gosh, it's easy!' he marveled, open-mouthed. 'I never knew before how easy it is to kill anyone! Twenty years to grow 'em, and all it takes is one little push!'He was suddenly drunk with some new k...”

“He began as a minor imitator of Fitzgerald, wrote a novel in the late twenties which won a prize, became dissatisfied with his work, stopped writing for a period of years. When he came back it was ...”

“I saw her sign the register, but her name isn't on it any more. The bellboy says he never saw her. Now they've got me so I'm scared and shaky, like a little kid is of the dark. I want you men to he...”

“He's prowling back and forth like a lion with distemper now. There's a shiny streak down one side of his face. "I shouldn't have let her go ahead - I ought to be hung! Something's gone wrong. I can...”

“She had signed her own death-warrant. He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame, she had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew there was one. He had known f...”

“And he's alone there, with the unconscious pilot lying a little way off for company, and some other guy he's never even seen, only spoken to over the radio.He wants to sleep so badly - dying they c...”

“The struggle doesn't last long; it's too unequal. Their momentary surprise overcome, they close in on him. The well-directed slice of a gun-butt slackens the good arm; it's easy to pry the disabled...”

“And then, with a shock like high-voltage coursing through me, the phone beside me started pealing thinly.I just stood there and stared at it, blood draining from my face. A call to a tollbooth? It ...”

“And then finally she came - and the whole world faded out around us and we were just alone on the crowded sidewalk. I've heard it called love.("I Won't Take a Minute" aka "I'll Just Be a Minute" ak...”

“She was the kind of shopkeeper who finishes the paragraph she is reading before waiting on the customer.”

“There was nothing the matter out there. It was in here, with me.I decided I'd better go to work, maybe that would exorcise me. I fled from the room almost as though it were haunted. It was too late...”

“I didn't look over my shoulder; there wasn't a sound behind me on the pavement, but I knew he was coming slowly after me. The crawl of the skin up and down my back told me. Little needles of warnin...”

“Being broke didn't seem so awful as it had yesterday, being broke but being at peace with the world.("Don't Wait Up For Me Tonight")”

“You'd be surprised how difficult it is to ask alms of a stranger when you've never done it before, what a psychological barrier separates the honest man from the panhandler. ("Dusk To Dawn")”

“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 molecule...”