Chet Williamson > Quotes

“There's nothing like a headless corpse to bring a touch of excitement into one's life.”
― Chet Williamson, Murder in Cormyr

“Dark is dark in the darkness.”
― Chet Williamson, Murder in Cormyr

“Being with Karen had made him realize how much the past few days (rather, nights) had changed him. He had always been a loner, but on those nights when he had been Don Juan and Casanova, and yes, de Sade, too, sex was better than it had ever been before. That was what frightened him. for he knew those nights were only masturbatory fantasies that pulled him inward, toward the self, barring the rest of humanity from his life. And he knew that if it continued, it would be harder and harder to return, and ultimately he would want to stay in the dreams forever.”
― Chet Williamson, Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

“This is an age when men hide their deepest fears and instincts behind a mask of rationality. Mankind has become a herd of sheep which does not believe in the existence of wolves.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Now, Jasper, as a great man once said, 'A brave and steadfast heart can overcome any fear.' So don't worry. I'll be back with Benelaius shortly. In the meantime, look about for clues, only don't disturb anything."
[...]
I knew only too well who that great man was whom he spoke of. Camber Fosrick. I had committed the quote to memory as well. So Lindavar, one of the War Wizards of Cormyr, was addicted to trashy literature too. I would have chuckled had I not been so scared.”
― Chet Williamson, Murder in Cormyr

“Merridale was as self-centered as a Broadway star on opening night.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Gossip? Me? How would I know about such things?” “Don’t think of it as gossip. Think of it as rumor and innuendo.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“You don’t believe Hobbamock is invincible?” “No. My people centuries ago proved that. He is powerful— and gaining strength with each new child. But I do not think he is invincible . . . yet. Could he become invincible? Could he gain so much strength that nothing could stop him? This is a question that has kept me up nights.” “But you’re convinced he can be defeated?” “Absolutely.” “By a kid carrying some kind of magic spear.” “Yes,” Charlie said softly. “I had . . . an experience, what Quidnecks call pniese. What your Bible calls a revelation or apocalypse. The pniese made everything clear.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Garris had pet names for all of them. Mahler was the Mad Doktor. Franz Liszt was Son of Lovecraft. Mendelssohn was Santa Claus Meets the Hell’s Angels. Beethoven was the High School Principal.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Abbie had learned a thing or two about hospitals during her three-day stay. She’d learned that when someone said, “This will only hurt a little bit,” what he really meant was, “Nothing ever hurt this bad.” She’d learned that the steel instruments they touched you with were cold, as if they kept them in the freezer. She’d learned that when you felt well enough for a soda, they brought you too little. She’d learned that there were rules for everything, including when people could come see you, and who could come see you, and what you could wear, and what time you had to get up. She’d learned that people in hospitals could Pass Away.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Batman was the only D.C. title in the bunch, and just barely. He had liked the movies more than the books, but there was something about the character that he just couldn’t dismiss. Maybe it was the fact that Batman was just a man with a neat suit. No super powers, no glowing rocks, no fast-motion – just a man with a mission. Man with a mission.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“The customers were mainly people middle-aged or older, and they’d probably take a sledge hammer to anything that spewed out the top forty. This was Lawrence Welk country. A wild tune was a polka.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“The old Arab epigram drifted into his mind, that God invented silk so that women could be naked in clothes,”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Good! Brad thought. Great! I can see the headline now: MORGANTOWN MYSTERY DISEASE FELLS ALL CHILDREN, BUT TOLL PALES IN COMPARISON WITH BLACK DEATH. CDC OFFICIALS GREATLY RELIEVED!”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“It’s just that I think we should be responsible for our friends, is all. If we’re not, why bother to have friends?”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“If I hadn’t stopped that guy, everybody woulda just let him go. Nobody wants to put their ass on the line for anything, you know?”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“She watched a squirrel watching her. “Yeah, laugh all you want, buckaroo. I need the exercise, and nobody invited you to watch. Whoops!” Cass slid feet first down five feet or so of the rock surface. Pathetic miniature avalanches of chalky rock trickled around her. Fifteen feet away, another squirrel joined the first on the branch of a crooked, dead tree. The soil could not nourish the tree here. But the squirrels could gather there to make bad squirrel jokes and watch the human burlesque.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Got a headache, huh?” Allan nodded. “Severe.” “Why don’t you use what doctors recommend most?” “Oh, God …” “Electroshock therapy! It really works!”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Don, Corrine, and everyone else on the island was trapped here with a murderer who didn’t just kill but committed unspeakable acts. Like decapitating a man, biting chunks out of people, beating a man until he was unrecognizable. For the duration of the Split, neither the killer nor his potential victims could get away from each other, and the local police had no idea who the murderer was. Otherwise, everything was great.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“History teaches that evil at its most exalted is merely a wretched excess of good.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Straining against her leash, the puppy tried to go a hundred different ways at once.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“What was the point of having a dishwasher if you had to wash the stupid dishes first? When she grew up, she’d have a robot to do all the housework for her.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Gasm was one of the first to put a warning label on their record.” Lucas saw the sticker on the shrink-wrap of Pain Threshold. WARNING! This record contains music that has been SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN to pollute your precious bodily fluids, grow hair on your hands, kill your goldfish, and cause mass starvation in the Third World. If you subject yourself to this music, your soul will fry in hell forever, world without end, PLAY IT LOUD!!!”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“know, it’s kinda nice to have some people in here who died of natural causes. Every once in a while, an inexplicable murder can brighten your day. But enough is enough, you know what I mean?”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Kate had attended a Presbyterian church with her family in Norfolk; she’d heard how the God of Moses could flip out and go pretty damn nuts when things didn’t turn out His way.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Jazz had an intuition about such things, the guy could read your eyes like few else could. He was famous for his sarcasm, wit, and dramatics, as well as for holding tightly to a world record for coitus interruptus. He’d been found on floors and rooftops, in taco stands, ladies’ shoes and underwear departments, the DMV—he’d been found by UPS drivers, cops in the park, beach patrol, meter readers, meter maids, meter maids’ boyfriends while on rooftops with the meter maids, National Guardsmen out on maneuvers.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Sometimes even the most highborn must swab out their own toilets.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Both power and chemical executives (who were also catching flak from environmentalists) sent their own representatives to Merridale in an effort to discover the true cause and clear themselves, or, if the fault were theirs, find some way to reverse the phenomenon and/or cover up their involvement in it.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“Can’t this creature just hang out at a hospital, eat up the souls or essences or whatever of people who die naturally?” For a long moment Kesselring simply looked at him. “It’s evil,” he said finally. “That’s its whole purpose in being here. To do evil.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

“You’ll have a faithful Indian companion. Girl Friday. Whatever you want. I’ll even launder my own irreclaimable socks. You’ve already told me I’m a terrific conversationalist, and I’m a person you know who’s not dead. Think carefully before you turn down an offer like this.”
― Chet Williamson, A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult