Quotes from Jack Ketchum

To her eyes, used to diversity, there was a troubling uniformity about them all, something that spoke of isolation, and a dull and thoughtless cruelty.

Bad enough I'm a goddamn burden to myself.

Always liked my sins pure and take it as it comes.

Bar life is about as democratic as we get.

There were so many hidden realities in the world, so many secret lives. It seemed like nobody lived just one.

It was a time when even the guilty displayed a rare innocence. In

The life he'd known now seemed capable of multiple, even infinite shatterings.

Friendship and sex were really all she wanted from men these days.

What a terrible time to find out how good life can be, I thought. And how good to find out anyway.

I see Donny turning to throw the words over his shoulder on his way across the lawn to the porch. Casually, but with an odd sort of sincerity about him, as though this were absolute gospel. "My mom says Meg's the lucky one," he said. "My mom says she got off easy.

It's a cold, stark emptiness that has no laughter in it. No compassion, and no mercy. It's feral. Like the eyes of a hunting animal.

The dead are home before us, daddy, she said. But we have work to do.

She had always given too much of her life over to relationships, and they'd never quite worked out. Now she was simplifying her life in favor of her career. It gave her a sense of control to watch herself succeeding, and a great deal of satisfaction.

Pain can work from the outside in. I mean that sometimes what you see is pain. Pain in its cruelest, purest form.

Kids get second chances. I like to think I'm using mine.

But the children are not fine. They will never be.

Sometimes the only way to know a thing is to know it first hand, Mr McCormack. See it. Taste it. Smell it. Then you know it

And for a moment she was the heroine again. Battling the odds. But just for a moment. Because suddenly it was clear to me again that all she could do was take it, powerless. And lose. And I remember thinking at least it's not me. If I wanted to I could even join them. For that moment, thinking that, I had power.

my drug was knowing. Knowing what was possible. Knowing how far it could go.

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 "I never want to hear the screams Of the teenage girls in other people's dreams." —The Specials "The soul under the burden of sin cannot flee." —Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn

We're many things, all of us, blown by so many unexpected winds.

He had not seen that kind of bleeding since 'Nam. I'd better get busy, he thought. He backed away silently from the window.

Friskies was noisy food, all hard little pellets. He enjoyed the crackling sounds and supposed the cat did too. He thought that they probably reminded her of tiny bones breaking, of who she was down deep.

I'm not going to tell you about this. I refuse to. There are things you know you'll die before telling, things you know you should have died before ever having seen. I watched and saw.