Robert Cormier Quotes

″I keep thinking I have a tunnel in my chest. The path the bullet took, burrowing through the flesh and sinew and whatever muscle the bullet encountered.”

“This is why Miro did not like waiting. It gave him too much time to think, to ponder, to wonder about things he should leave to Artkin.”

“Miro pondered what she was thinking. Did she suspect that she would die before this incident was over? Has she seen through Artkin’s lies, even though he lied to skillfully?”

″‘My name is Jerry Renault and I’m not going to sell the chocolates,’ he said to the empty apartment. The word and his voice sounded strong and noble.”

“You see, Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. So we have a perfect set up here. The greed part—a kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part—watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they’re safe in the bleachers.”

“Was life that dull, that boring and humdrum for people? He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine, fine—not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything.”

“Archie disliked violence—most of his assignments were exercises in the psychological rather than the physical. That’s why he got away with so much. The Trinity brothers wanted peace at any price, quiet on the campus, no broken bones. Otherwise, the sky was the limit.”

“If they can sell ten thousand boxes of chocolates in other years, why not twenty thousand this year? And these are special chocolates, Archie. High profit. A special deal.”

“He shivered with dread, realizing how awesome Archie’s power really was.”

“You couldn’t ever win an argument with Archie. He was too quick with his words.”

“You could take a kid’s lunch money and nothing usually happened because most kids wanted peace at any price.”

“Do I dare disturb the universe?”

“He didn’t want to be a mirror of his father. The thought made him cringe. I want to do something. Be somebody. But what? But what?”