Cornell Woolrich Quotes

Time is strange. A moment can be as short as a breath, or as long as eternity.

You see, this would be a death by the imagination. And though the imagination feeds on phantoms, it needs a premise in reality to begin with. Then it can go on from there under its own power.

All guys are scared of each other, didn't you know that? I'm not the only one. We're all born afraid.

It was as simple as that - they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")

It's just some instinct as old as fear: you seek the dark when you hide, you seek the light when the need to hide is gone. All the animals have it too.

I had that trapped feeling, like some sort of a poor insect that you've put inside a downturned glass, and it tries to climb up the sides, and it can't, and it can't, and it can't.

It was as simple as that - they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple.("For The Rest Of Her Life")

How simple death without weapons was. How safe for the killer.("Mind Over Murder")

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

She had said: 'You could not hate anyone that much -' She was mistaken. What did she know? She felt so good right now, this must be hate, what else could it be?("Mind Over Murder")

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")

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")

The portieres were drawn across the French windows now, veiling the stars outside - that were there nevertheless. ("Speak To Me Of Death")

The sightseers would have been disappointed, as the real thing always makes a poorer show than the fake. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")

But that's the Way, and there is no other. And once his mind's made up, the trembling and aimless walking stops, and he can look doom in the face without flinching. ("Jane Brown's Body")

A slight concussion of the brain simplifies matters so beautifully.("Three O'Clock")

Men's loyalty to their women dies hard - and almost always too late. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")

And the blood remembers what the heart has never learned. The approach to kill. ("The Moon Of Montezuma")

What careful planning, what painstaking attention to detail, goes into extinguishing a man's life! Far more than the hit-or-miss, haphazard circumstances of igniting it.("New York Blues")

Extreme joy and extreme sorrow are indistinguishable beyond a certain point. ("Jane Brown's Body")

But there are three things in this world you can’t shrug off: death, taxes – and a girl who loves you.

Babette looked too good for the place tonight, but then goodness is only relative after all ("Steps Going Up" aka "Guillotine" aka "Men Must Die")

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

That's a man's vital spot, the helpless thing he loves. ("Jane Brown's Body")