Top 150 Robert R. McCammon Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I don’t believe there can be any bad taste in creating a scene, only badwriting in handling it.”

— Robert R. McCammon

102. “I have been blessed, to be able to create characters and worlds out of whole cloth. Writer? Author? How about storyteller?”

— Robert R. McCammon

103. “Those who babble the Lord’s Prayer day and night would be the first to grin when I’m set afire.”

— Robert R. McCammon

104. “TWAS SAID better to light a candle than to curse the dark, but in the town of New York in the summer of 1702 one might do both, for the candles were small and the dark was large. True, there were the town-appointed constables and watchmen.”

— Robert R. McCammon

105. “Trouble is, at my age, most all my dreams are reruns.”

— Robert R. McCammon

106. “Jesus Christ was as perfect as a human bein’ can be, yet he got mad and fought and wept and had days of feelin’ like he couldn’t go on another step. Like when the lepers and the sick folks almost trampled him down, all of ’em beggin’ for miracles and doggin’ him till he was about miracled out. What I’m sayin’, Mr. Mackenson, is that even Jesus Christ needed help sometimes, and he wasn’t too proud to ask for it.”

— Robert R. McCammon

107. “If black people occupied the same heaven as white people, what was the point of eating in different cafes here on earth? If black people and white people walked in heaven together, did that mean we were smarter or more stupid than God because on earth we shunned each other?”

— Robert R. McCammon

108. “Hans?” The president’s voice was as soft as a child’s. “If... if you were God... would you destroy this world?” Hannan didn’t respond for a moment. Then, “I suppose... I’d wait and watch. If I were God, I mean.” “Wait and watch for what?” “To find out who wins. The good guys or the bad guys.” “Is there a difference anymore?”

— Robert R. McCammon

109. “But who ever said everybody gets a happy ending?”

— Robert R. McCammon

110. “It had been a joyful day for frogs and mud hens. For the human breed, however, the low gray clouds and chill rain coiled chains around the soul.”

— Robert R. McCammon

111. “Rain fell on the roofs of the just and the unjust, the saints and the sinners, those who knew peace and those in torment, and tomorrow began at a dark hour.”

— Robert R. McCammon

112. “His hair was think and curly and reddish-brown, his eyes a clear ice blue; Ramona had told him many times that she could see the sky in them, clouds when he was angry and rain when he was sad. Now, if she had looked into his eyes closely enough, she might’ve seen the approaching storm.”

— Robert R. McCammon

113. “I think everybody has some eagle and some snake in them; they fight to pull your spirit high or drag it to the ground. The question is: which one do you let win, and at what price?”

— Robert R. McCammon

114. “It seemed to me that there were two worlds: one before the sun, and one after. And if that were true, then maybe there were people who were citizens of those different worlds as well. Some moved easily through the landscape of night, and others clung to the bright hours.”

— Robert R. McCammon

115. “It’s not right,” he said, “to hate somethin’ just for bein’ alive.”

— Robert R. McCammon

116. “So before long we had a sensible fire going, the firepit rimmed with stones as my dad had told me to do, and by its ruddy light we three frontiersmen ate the sandwiches our mothers had made.”

— Robert R. McCammon

117. “Don’t you go through a day without remembering something of it, and tucking that memory away like a treasure. Because it is.”

— Robert R. McCammon

118. “Both of my grandfathers had voices like bullfrogs battling in a swamp pond.”

— Robert R. McCammon

119. “I guess you never know what a person can do until that person has to do it.”

— Robert R. McCammon

120. “Johnny ate encyclopedias like any other kid might eat Red Hots or Lemonheads.”

— Robert R. McCammon

121. “It seemed to me at an early age that all human communication – whether it’s TV, movies, or books – begins with somebody wanting to tell a story. That need to tell, to plug into a universal socket, is probably one of our grandest desires. And the need to hear stories, to live lives other than our own for even the briefest moment, is the key to the magic that was born in our bones. The.”

— Robert R. McCammon

122. “Sheer terror has no voice.”

— Robert R. McCammon

123. “I have lived,” she said in her clear, strong voice, “a hundred lifetimes, and I’m not dead yet.”

— Robert R. McCammon

124. “All us kids had found out by now that all teachers had a sore spot; some went crazy over gum chewing, others insane over behind-the-back giggles, still others nuts over the repeated squeaking and scuffing of shoes on the linoleum. Machine-gun coughs, donkeylike snorts, a fusillade of throat clearing, spitballs stuck to the blackboard: all these were arsenals in the battle against Hitlerian teachers. Who knows?”

— Robert R. McCammon

125. “On those shelves are stacks of me: hundreds of comic books – Justice League, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, the Spirit, Blackhawk, Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, Aquaman, and the Fantastic Four. There are Boy’s Life magazines, dozens of issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Screen Thrills, and Popular Mechanics. There is a yellow wall of National Geographics, and I have to blush and say I know where all the African pictures are.”

— Robert R. McCammon

126. “If... if you were God... would you destroy this world?” Hannan.”

— Robert R. McCammon

127. “Who on this earth can know where they’re going, unless they have a map of where they’ve been?”

— Robert R. McCammon

128. “You never know how things are gonna turn out, though, and that’s the truth. You aim for one place, sure as an arrow, but before you hit the mark, the wind gets you. I don’t believe I ever met one person who became what they wanted to be when they were your age.”

— Robert R. McCammon

129. “Hey, listen here!” She strode toward their booth on her chunky legs, her cheeks reddening.”

— Robert R. McCammon

130. “It’s the curse of man to have a mind and not have the sense to use it.”

— Robert R. McCammon

131. “Life and Death were part of the same puzzle, part of the same strange and miraculous process of growth.”

— Robert R. McCammon

132. “What would describe it? What word in the English language would speak of youth and hope and freedom and desire, of sweet wanderlust and burning blood? What word describes the brotherhood of buddies, and the feeling that as long as the music plays, you are part of that tough, rambling breed who will inherit the earth?”

— Robert R. McCammon

133. “I judge God, or the power that we know as God, to be very, very weak. A dying candle, if you like, surrounded by darkness. And the darkness is closing in.”

— Robert R. McCammon

134. “Bein’ used to somethin’,” Davy Ray answered, “is not the same as likin’ it.”

— Robert R. McCammon

135. “After a few minutes he looked back and saw the derricks of St. Nasty receding against the violet-streaked sky. Then he looked forward again, toward whatever lay ahead.”

— Robert R. McCammon

136. “He felt, though, that if love was the desire to possess someone, it was in reality the poor substance of self-love. It seemed to him that a greater, truer love was the desire to open a cage – be it made of iron bars or the bones of tormented injustice – and set the nightbird free.”

— Robert R. McCammon

137. “I never knew what hate really was until I thought of somebody wrapping up a bomb and putting it in a church on a Sunday morning to kill little girls.”

— Robert R. McCammon

138. “I had discovered that being a writer gave you a lot of license to fiddle with the truth, but I’d better not get into the habit of it.”

— Robert R. McCammon

139. “Tell me. What is the point of life, if truth is not worth standing up for? If justice is a hollow shell? If beauty and grace are burnt to ashes, and evil rejoices in the flames? Shall I weep on that day, and lose my mind, or join the rejoicing and lose my soul? Shall I sit in my room? Should I go for a long walk, but where might I go so as not to smell the smoke? Should I just go on, Mrs. Nettles, like everyone else?”

— Robert R. McCammon

140. “We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age.”

— Robert R. McCammon

141. “The young man’s eyes were red-rimmed, his gaunt face strained by whatever inner demons were torturing him.”

— Robert R. McCammon

142. “That had been close, she thought. The demons almost got me! But glory be to Jesus, and when he arrives in his flying saucer from the planet Jupiter I’ll be there on the golden shore to kiss his hand!”

— Robert R. McCammon

143. “Bedlam,” Matthew said. The term for insane asylums had been used for many years, and originated in the clamor and ravings of the mad persons locked within.”

— Robert R. McCammon

144. “Do you... do you love me?” “Like a mirror,” Friend answered.”

— Robert R. McCammon

145. “But it occurred to him that some afternoons when the great one was supposed to be uncovering an investigation he must instead be investigating an uncovering.”

— Robert R. McCammon

146. “Her eyes found his. “Like the wind. Or a train’s whistle, way far off. Or thunder, long before you see the lightning. A lot of things.” “How long have you been able to hear it?” “Since I was a little girl.” Josh couldn’t help but smile. Swan misread it. “Are you making fun of me?” “No. Maybe... I wish I could hear a sound like that. Do you know what it is?” “Yes,” Swan answered. “It’s death.”

— Robert R. McCammon

147. “I wanted to believe everyone was kind, and good, and just. I wanted to believe hard work was rewarded, and a man stood on his word. I wanted to believe a man was a Christian every day of the week, not just Sunday, and that the law was fair and the politicians wise and if you walked the straight path you found that peace you were searchin’ for.”

— Robert R. McCammon

148. “If you were my girlfriend I would give you a hundred lightning bugs in a green glass jar, so you could always see your way. I would give you a meadow full of wildflowers, where no two blooms would ever be alike. I would give you my bicycle, with its golden eye to protect you. I would write a story for you, and make you a princess who lived in a white marble castle. If you would only like me, I would give you magic. If you would only like me.”

— Robert R. McCammon

149. “And he hoped that if the time ever came for that elemental fist to come crashing down, its wielder might take a moment of pause as well.”

— Robert R. McCammon

150. “This was supposed to be enjoyable, Matthew thought grimly. Berry had taught him the positions and steps last week, but with the fiddling and the drumming and Gilliam Vincent’s stick poised to strike a blow for artful perfection.”

— Robert R. McCammon