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Kids Tell Me All The Time, "i Don't Know How You Do It, But That's Us In The Book." That's The Kind Of Response You Want, And I Can't Sacrifice It For The Sake Of Somebody Worried About Censorship. You Have To Find A Way To Be Truthful And Honest.

-Robert Cormier

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Kids Tell Me All

Robert Cormier

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Kids Tell Me All The Time, "i Don't Know How You Do It, But That's Us In The Book." That's The Kind Of Response You Want, And I Can't Sacrifice It For The Sake Of Somebody Worried About Censorship. You Have To Find A Way To Be Truthful And Honest.

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I Take Real People And Put Them In Extraordinary Situations.

And He Did See--that Life Was Rotten, That There Were No Heroes, Really, And That You Couldn't Trust Anybody, Not Even Yourself.

They Don't Actually Want You To Do Your Own Thing, Not Unless It's Their Thing Too.

A Terrific Sadness Swept Over Jerry. As If Somebody Had Died. The Way He Felt Standing In The Cemetry That Day They Buried His Mother. And Nothing You Could Do About It.

You Bring Up Your Children To Be Self-reliant And Independent And They Double-cross You And Become Self-reliant And Independent.

I Can't Remember A Time When I Wasn't Trying To Get Something Down On Paper.

When People Say They Write For Themselves, That's Probably What They Do. I Will Admit That I Don't Write For Myself; I Write To Be Read. I've Got The Reader In My Mind All The Time.

...pain Reaches A Certain Point And Does Not Get Worse But Remains In All Its Intensity And You Can Survive It.

It's Amazing That The Heart Makes No Noise When It Cracks.

I Am Frightened By Today's World, Terrified By It. I Think That Comes Out In The Books. I'm Afraid Of Big Things. Some Of These Schools Have Three Thousand Kids, And Even The Size Of The Schools Frightens Me. Big Government Frightens Me; So Does Big Defense.

The Beautiful Part Of Writing Is That You Don't Have To Get It Right The First Time, Unlike, Say, A Brain Surgeon. You Can Always Do It Better, Find The Exact Word, The Apt Phrase, The Leaping Simile.

The Rewriting Is Always Crucial To What I Do; Whenever I Do A Scene, I Always Tell Myself That This Isn't Final And That I Can Do It Again, Better. The Pacing Is Probably From Experience. I've Always Liked Gradual Disclosure. I Keep Thinking Of My Rubber-band Theory. You Have A Rubber Band That You Keep Pulling And Pulling And Pulling, And Just At The Moment Of Snapping You Release It And Start Another Chapter And Start Pulling Again.

You Have To Accept The Critical Reviews If They Treat You With Respect. Actually, It's One Person's Opinion. So, It's A Concern But Not An Overriding One, And I Don't Stay Up Nights Worrying About Reviews. But There Are Certain People I Respect Who I Hope Will Like A Book.

He Was Intrigued By The Power Of Words, Not The Literary Words That Filled The Books In The Library But The Sharp, Staccato Words That Went Into The Writing Of News Stories. Words That Went For The Jugular. Active Verbs That Danced And Raced On The Page.

The Earliest Influence On Me Was The Movies Of The Thirties When I Was Growing Up. Those Were Stories. If You Look At Them Now, You See The Development Of Character And The Twists Of Plot; But Essentially They Told Stories. My Mother Didn't Go To The Movies Because Of A Religious Promise She Made Early In Her Life, And I Used To Go To Movies And Come Home And Tell Her The Plots Of Those Old Warner Brothers/james Cagney Movies, The Old Romantic Love Stories. Through These Movies That Had Real Characters, I Absorbed Drama, Sense Of Pacing, And Plot.

A Man I Know Who Writes And Aspires To Be A Novelist Does Very Little Reading, And He's Not That Successful. But I Think It's Because He's Like The Kid Who Wants To Be A Ballplayer And Never Goes To The Ballpark Or Tries To Hit A Ball. So I'd Say Reading Is The Most Important Thing That I Do, Besides The Actual Writing. I'm Always Asking As I Read, "how Did The Writer Do This? Why Do I Suddenly Have Tears In My Eyes? Why Am I Crying?"

I Don't Like To Think In Terms Of Writing Ten Or Twelve Pages A Day. Usually I'm Writing A Scene, And It's Always With The Idea, "i Wonder What Is Going To Happen." Or Sometimes I Write About Something That Affected Me Emotionally The Day Before And That I Don't Want To Lose. I'm Very Unorganized At First; But Finally It Comes Into A Structure Where Consciously I'm Working On A Novel Per Se.

Salinger Is Such A Terrific Writer; He Did So Many Great Things. He Is One Of Those Writers That I Still Reread, Simply Because He Makes Me See The Possibilities And Makes Me Feel Like Writing. There Are Certain Writers Who Put You In The Mood To Write. In The Way A Whiff Of A Cigar Will Bring Back Memories Of A Ballgame On A Saturday Afternoon, Reading Salinger Makes Me Want To Get To The Typewriter.

I Have Lived A Thousand Lives Lost Within The Pages Of A Book.

Cities Fell. Earth Opened. Planets Tilted. Stars Plummeted. And The Awful Silence.

I'm Not A Reader Of Young Adult Fiction For The Simple Reason That These Novelists Are Writing For Adolescents, So They Are Not Writing For Me.

I Find That Most Books That I Don't Like Are Those In Which The Authors Have Indulged Themselves. I Can Almost Sense When They're Writing Something For Themselves.

I've Had Aunts And Uncles Who Not Only Haven't Read My Books But Could Hardly Believe That I Was A Writer.

Writing, Even Though It's Hard Work, Is Really A Joy When You Get These Characters To Come Alive. It's Hard To Trace Where They Come From. I Can't Say That I Am Sitting Here One Night At Nine O'clock And That A Character Occurs To Me. The Magic For Me Happens At The Typewriter.

A Novel Must Work As A Story Because No One's Going To Get To The Other Themes If You Don't Entertain The Reader. But I Like To Have Another Layer Of Meaning, Although You Can Read The Book On One Level And Not Bother With That Other Layer.

You Hope That People Read Your Book And Say "yes, This Is The Way It Is Or Could Be." But Then You Have No Way Of Knowing Until The Reader Reads The Book. Actually, The Critical Response Doesn't Worry Me. I've Had Very Few Reviews That Have Upset Me.

I'm Weary Of The Battle. But A Tired Fighter Can Still Be A Fighter.

He Hated To Think Of His Own Life Stretching Ahead Of Him That Way, A Long Succession Of Days And Nights That Were Fine - Not Good, Not Bad, Not Great, Not Lousy, Not Exciting, Not Anything.

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A New Sickness Invaded Jerry, The Sickness Of Knowing What He Had Become, Another Animal, Another Beast, Another Violent Person In A Violent World, Inflicting Damage, Not Disturbing The Universe But Damaging It.

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It Would Be Nice To Avoid The World, To Leave It And All Its Threats And Unhappiness. Not To Die Or Anything Like That, But To Find A Place Of Solitude And Solace.

Don't Miss The Bus, Boy. You're Missing A Lot Of Things In The World, Better Not Miss That Bus.

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Guarantees That

Occupy Yourself

There Are No Taboos. Every Topic Is Open, However Shocking. It Is The Way That The Topics Are Handled That's Important, And That Applies Whether It Is A 15-year-old Who Is Reading Your Book Or Someone Who Is 55.

When I Write, I Never Think Of Segments As Chapters; I Think Of Them As Scenes. I Always Visualize Them In My Mind. Then I Try To Get The Scene Down On Paper As Closely As I Can. That's The One Thing That Readers Don't See - What You Have In Your Mind. The Reader Can Only See What You Get On The Page.

I Don't Mean To Be Insolent. I'm Truthful. I Tell The Truth And The Truth Sometimes Hurts. For Instance, You Have Bad Breath, Lieutenant. I Can Smell It From Here. It Must Offend A Lot Of People. That's The Truth. But How Many People Have Told You That? Instead, They Either Lie Or Try To Avoid Your Company.

I Don't Think I Began To Be A Professional Writer Until I Learned My Weaknesses And What I Couldn't Do. This Forced Me To Compensate.

He Was Swept With A Sadness, A Sadness Deep And Penetrating, Leaving Him Desolate Like Someone Washed Up On A Beach, A Lone Survivor In A World Full Of Strangers.

There Is Very Little That Is Accidental In My Work. I Believe In Serendipity For Developments Of Plot, But The Actual Writing Is Arrived At By Very Hard Work. The Joy Of Writing Doesn't Mean That You Don't Get The Backaches And Headaches And The Days When It's Not Coming.

Archie Became Absolutely Still, Afraid That The Rapid Beating Of His Heart Might Betray His Sudden Knowledge, The Proof Of What He'd Always Suspected, Not Only Of Brother Leon But Most Grownups, Most Adults: They Were Vulnerable, Running Scared, Open To Invasion.

It Came To Me That Hell Would Not Be Fire And Smoke After All But Arctic, Everything White And Frigid. Hell Would Be Not Anger But Indifference.

It Would Be The Death Of All Creativity For Me If I Had To Sit There And Be Concerned With The Sensibilities Of A Fourteen-year-old Kid. Some Fourteen-year-olds Would Revel In The Book, And Some Would Be Very Sensitive To It, So You Can't Afford To Worry About That. What I Worry About Is Good Taste And Getting My Message Across By Whatever Means I Can.

I Have Always Had A Sense That We Are All Pretty Much Alone In Life, Particularly In Adolescence.

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