Douglas Clegg > Quotes

“Death has a price, and all who bargain with the dead must pay it.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“We kill, kill, kill. Flesh, spirit, whatever gets in our way. It's like our whole purpose is to extinguish life. And for those who live, there's memory, like a curse. We're such a mixture of frailty and cruelty.”
― Douglas Clegg

“He put his hand over my mouth. His hand felt warm, full of blood, the hand of a living man. “Death is a gift, so long as it is nature’s hand. But this,” he drew his hand away, and nodded toward the dead man in the grass. “When we are called back unnaturally, Death demands a price, for there is always a balance. If I am alive, then someone else must die before his time. This is what you have done. But he is the lucky one. He is at peace. I know what awaits him, and I envy him.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“Besides, back to the subject of you being nuts, all writers are nuts, didn’t you know that?”
― Douglas Clegg, The Children's Hour

“Sometimes, they wait. Sometimes, you see the dead come in to the harbor, and their old dogs are all along the docks, wagging their tails, for they have waited for their masters and mistresses for many years. You see mothers who have missed their sons. Fathers who had never spoken of love to their children, ready to embrace them as they voyage from the end of life. It shows the lies of this world, you see. We are wrong about so many things here. Mankind has done terrible things, yet we are forgiven.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“I understood, then, where his madness had come from: He, too, had experienced the loss of the good and the victory of the evil.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“He was a golden boy in a world of brass and tin.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“Never go in, miss. Never say a prayer at its door. If you are angry, do not seek revenge by the Laughing Maiden stone, or at the threshold of the Tombs. There be those who listen for oaths and vows, and them that takes it quite to heart. What may be said in innocence and ire becomes flesh and blood should it be uttered in such places.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“Old Marsh wore a look of sorrow upon his face. “You called him, miss. You called him. You must send him back now. You must send him back. He won’t be the brother you remember. It ain’t his spirit comes back. I told you that. It’s the soul of death comes back, that’s what it is, miss. The soul of death in disguise like your brother. Only the one who called him can send him back. I saw the bird in the cellars, in the bowl, miss. I know what you done. I know what you called.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“There is more terror in a day of life than there is at the moment of death. It is as if a door has opened to a prison, though you do not believe it is a prison while you exist within it.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“Death is a gift, so long as it is nature’s hand.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“...and I knew that her soul had been released from the awful torment of its earthly cage.”
― Douglas Clegg, Neverland

“As Bambi’s mother said, why not blow a few extra bucks when the mood strikes?”
― Douglas Clegg, The Children's Hour

“Skinless creatures swayed in death throes from thick, silver hooks. Beneath them, on the turquoise mosaic floor, rows of buckets overflowed with clotting blood.”
― Douglas Clegg, You Come When I Call You

“Death is not the end of things, my sister. It is the beginning of a greater adventure than this small life you cherish can hold. And beyond these shores of death, there are great ships that fly from the golden seas to the skies of pearl.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“It is more magnificent than what I thought heaven might be, and yet it is all of its wonder, as well.”
...
"Iris, we are shut off from it in this life because if any knew its magnificence, life itself would end, for all who are living would seek death. But as the egg must be in the nest for the bird to fly from it, so the living must live and die when nature intends so that the shell may be broken at the point when the living have wings to fly. It is as if in life we are blind, and in death we see. In life we think in error, but in death we know and love and understand.”
― Douglas Clegg, Isis

“We all scream because we are alive.”
― Douglas Clegg, Neverland

“They ate so much food out of the can, the jar, the tinfoil, the box, that the youngest thought her mother’s name was Sara Lee.”
― Douglas Clegg, You Come When I Call You

“There are prisons within prisons, and skins within skins. You can’t always see who someone is just by looking in his eyes. Sometimes, others are there.”
― Douglas Clegg, The Nightmare Chronicles: Thirteen Tales of Horror and Suspense

“Frailty and cruelty are our gifts to the world. Who is to say that suffering is not the greatest of all gifts from the gods?”
― Douglas Clegg, The Nightmare Chronicles: Thirteen Tales of Horror and Suspense

“If this is the Big One, he thought while the window rattled, will I be buried with Greg and Les, and will we end up drawing straws to see who eats who? Will Greg’s porky arm taste good, or will it taste as bad as he looks? Will I have to eat my toes one by one, like Vienna sausages?”
― Douglas Clegg, You Come When I Call You

“1. YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS

Youth is a cliff. You leap, and repair the broken bones later.
When you're older, you draw the map, retrace your steps and find the cliff's edge again to wonder:
Would anyone ever jump if they knew how far down it went?
I jumped, once.
I’m broken in unseen places.”
― Douglas Clegg

“Hey, any day you get through the afternoon here’s a good day.”
― Douglas Clegg, The Nightmare Chronicles: Thirteen Tales of Horror and Suspense

“I saw him as the supplier of my life. In a dream, in a hole, I saw the great snake of life, devouring its own tail. Life eats life, the image of the snake seemed to tell me. Life devours itself. You are part of this, and so is Gup. The snake is the whip in my father;s hand. The whip is in my hand and reaches from my bloodied back to whip my father's hand. The torturer and the tortured are each playing a part and cannot be without the other.”
― Douglas Clegg, Wild Things: Four Tales

“Family is putting up with each other’s shit sometimes I guess.”
― Douglas Clegg, The Halloween Man: A Supernatural Horror Thriller

“He believed the best use of human beings was as compost or incubators.”
― Douglas Clegg, The Nightmare Chronicles: Thirteen Tales of Horror and Suspense

“The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes their way. Happiness only happens for those who cry and those who hurt, for only then can they appreciate the importance of people who touch their lives.”
― Douglas Clegg, Purity

“If only... the two most miserable words in the English language. If only.”
― Douglas Clegg, The Children's Hour

“She found Lucy to be about as interesting as a toothache.”
― Douglas Clegg, The Nightmare Chronicles: Thirteen Tales of Horror and Suspense

“God was like the phone company: You paid your bill, and sometimes you got cut off anyway.”
― Douglas Clegg, The Nightmare Chronicles: Thirteen Tales of Horror and Suspense