Cornell Woolrich

“It was male, of course; menace is always male. ("Nightmare")”

— Cornell Woolrich

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

— Cornell Woolrich

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

— Cornell Woolrich

“You can always tell a car door, no other door sounds quite like it. ("New York Blues")”

— Cornell Woolrich

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

— Cornell Woolrich

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

— Cornell Woolrich

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

— Cornell Woolrich

“Murder is such an elastic term, isn't it? ("Mind Over Murder")”

— Cornell Woolrich

“The story thread suddenly dropped in a hopeless snarl, just as he was about to get it through the needle's eye of…

— Cornell Woolrich

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

— Cornell Woolrich

“She is in full delirium. But delirium is the antithesis of death; it is the body's struggle to survive. ("Jane Brown's Body")”

— Cornell Woolrich

“It's six o'clock; my drink is at the three-quarter mark - three-quarters down not three-quarters up - and the night begins. ("New…

— Cornell Woolrich

“There's an innocuous explanation for everything. Everything is a coin that has two sides to it, and one side is innocuous but…

— Cornell Woolrich

“I hate the world. Everything comes into it so clean and goes out so dirty. (from COVER CHARGE - currently not listed)”

— Cornell Woolrich

“You'd be surprised how difficult it is to ask alms of a stranger when you've never done it before, what a psychological…

— Cornell Woolrich

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

— Cornell Woolrich

“There was a pause, while I fought against this other, lesser kind of death that was creeping over me - this death…

— Cornell Woolrich

“You his brother?' 'Yes, damn it!' I burst out. "And all I want is to get my hands on whoever did this…

— Cornell Woolrich

I turned away from him and went on my way, up the street and about my business. The past was dead. The…

— Cornell Woolrich

“The massive bronze gates were wide open now, too late. Inside, the cemetery had been turned into a grotesque place gleaming with…

— Cornell Woolrich

“Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his 'teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that…

— Cornell Woolrich

“It wasn't an attack. We'd been together too many times before, made love together too many times before, for it to be…

— Cornell Woolrich

“The ride had begun. The theatre and club spectaculars seemed to stick up into the sky at all sorts of crazy angles,…

— Cornell Woolrich

“You see, this would be a death by the imagination. And though the imagination feeds on phantoms, it needs a premise in…

— Cornell Woolrich

“Then the long nights, that were also days, in the hospital. And the long blanks, that were also nights. Needles, and angled…

— Cornell Woolrich

“The struggle doesn't last long; it's too unequal. Their momentary surprise overcome, they close in on him. The well-directed slice of a…

— Cornell Woolrich

“A scattering of pinpoint lights shows up in the blackness ahead. A town or village straddling the highway. The indicator on the…

— Cornell Woolrich

“But it doesn't happen that way, I keep telling myself knowingly and sadly. Only in our fraternity pledges and masonic inductions, our…

— Cornell Woolrich

“He should have caught up with me inside of fifteen minutes at the outside, if he'd been able to get on the…

— Cornell Woolrich

“The old frame house down near the waterfront had never held so many people since the day it was put up. It…

— Cornell Woolrich

“O'Shaughnessy is hitting Denholt on the side of his head with his free arm, great, walloping, pile-driver blows. The two of them…

— Cornell Woolrich

“She turned and walked down the musty, dimly-lighted corridor, along a strip of carpeting that still clung together only out of sheer…

— Cornell Woolrich

“She was beautiful, only hers was the dark beauty of night, just as Sherry's was the bright beauty of daytime. Her hair…

— Cornell Woolrich

“Play it, Eddie, don't be foolish;' she urges. 'Now's the time, break the spell once and for all, prove to yourself that…

— Cornell Woolrich

“She gave a little sob deep in her throat. 'Call it a prophecy, call it a prediction, call it fate - call…

— Cornell Woolrich

“He handed me something done up in paper. 'Your mask,' he said. 'Don't put it on until we get past the city-limits.'…

— Cornell Woolrich

“And then, with a shock like high-voltage coursing through me, the phone beside me started pealing thinly. I just stood there and…

— Cornell Woolrich

“I must have roamed dementedly about for a time in the streets. When I at last got back to my own place,…

— Cornell Woolrich

“The glove comes off, flops loosely over, and there's suddenly horror beating into his brain, smashing, pounding, battering. He reels a little…

— Cornell Woolrich

“He's prowling back and forth like a lion with distemper now. There's a shiny streak down one side of his face. "I…

— Cornell Woolrich