Quotes from Jack Ketchum

Black coffee's a lot like whiskey, you know? All devil and no trimmin's. Always liked my sins pure and take it as it comes.

As though all the world were a bad joke and she was the only one around who knew the punchline.

I lay in bed and thought about how easy it was to hurt a person. It didn't have to be physical. All you had to do was take a good hard kick at something they cared about.

The trick of functioning with grief is that of remembering and forgetting all at once. Of letting the ghost walk at your side but not block the way.

pain can work form the outside in.

In the basement, with Ruth, I began to learn that anger, hate, fear and loneliness are all one button awaiting the touch of just a single finger to set them blazing toward destruction.

Someone once said to me that if you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans. Just tell him who you are.

The worst is missing them, you know? And knowing they won't be back again. Just knowing that. Sometimes you forget and it's as though they're on vacation or something and you think, gee, I wish they'd call. You miss them. You forget they're really gone. You forget the past six months even happened. Isn't that weird? Isn't that crazy? Then you catch yourself . . . and it's real again.

She was grinning and she should have been pretty when she grinned. She had good white teeth and a lovely, delicate mouth. But something always went wrong with Denise's smile. There was always something manic in it.

In the basement, with Ruth, I began to learn that anger, hate, fear and loneliness are all one button awaiting the touch of just a single finger to set them blazing toward destruction. And I learned that they can taste like winning.

The dialogue is solo now. I don't talk. No matter who's in bed with me I never do. My thoughts slip off into nightmares sometimes but I don't share them. I have become now what I only began to be then—completely self-protective.

You got to tell me the brave captain Why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep When the devil leaves the porch light on?" —Tom Waits

Thinking about writing isn't writing. Planning to write isn't writing. Neither is talking about it, posting about it, or complaining how hard it is. These may be part of the process. But only writing is writing.

We were just kids . We were property. We belonged to our parents, body and soul. It meant we were doomed in the face of any real danger from the adult world and that meant hopelessness, and humiliation and anger.

People were complex creatures, walking, talking rag quilts, youthful dreams and hopes and fears and middle-aged indiscretions, aging aches and pains and losses, the whole damn kit and kaboodle, mended here and tattered there. People were pushed and pulled in all sorts of directions and did whatever it was they had to do for balance.

Black coffee's a lot like whiskey, you know? All devil and no trimmin's. Always liked my sins pure and take it as it comes.

So here my check. Overdue and overdrawn. Cash it in hell.

A tired life breeds tired decisions, sometimes none at all.

Fighting for your life is a fucking ball. As long as you didn't get slaughtered.

I lay in bed and thought how easy it was to hurt a person. It didn't have to be physical. All you had to do was take a good hard kick at something they cared about.

But I figure passion's like the wind in the trees out there. Blows hard for a while and feels strong and clean while it's blowing and maybe it even blows so long and hard that you start living with it. It feels like the wind's a part of you, like it's essential, if you know what I mean, something you can hardly imagine life without. But it's got to pass. So you can get on with things without all the confusion of that wind in your hair.

He was a good man and a kind man but he never knew what he wanted. I think that eventually it killed him.

You tell me why's a man's blood is any better or any more precious than a dog's blood? It sure ain't to the dog.

pain can work form the outside in.