The Black Angel Quotes

“It's hard to say goodbye for good at any time or any place. It's harder still to say it through a meshed wire. It crisscrossed his face into little diagonals, gave me only little broken-up molecules of it at a time. It stenciled a cold, rigid frame around every kiss.”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel

“To be worshiped, though I didn’t realize it at the moment, is a far more dangerous situation to be in than simply to be desired.”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel

“I went in and started to get dressed. Dressed for calling, that is. I took more pains dressing for her than I ever had dressing for him. And yet he was the one I was dressing for, in a roundabout way. I had to be careful. Enemy eyes.

Finally I was ready and I got out fast. I knew if I didn't go quickly I'd never have the nerve to go at all. The two jiggers of gin were wearing off, so I stopped just long enough to gulp a third and last to see me through.

Then I went out and closed the door behind me, and for the first time in four years I didn't give a damn what there was going to be for supper.”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel

“Crazy thoughts without logic took turns slashing at me. “Why do they get you to learn to love them, if this is how they’re going to treat you after you do? Why do they come around you when you’re seventeen and aren’t doing anything to them, are just minding your own business, getting along all right without them, if this is how they’re going to act when you’re twenty-two? Why don’t they leave you alone?” I sobbed deep inside where it couldn’t be heard. “Why don’t they leave you alone if they don’t mean it?”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel

“Life was simpler here in this place. Life was a shot of novocain. Life was carpet slippers all day long, and a bathrobe, and hair that wasn’t combed. Life was a rickety iron bed that wasn’t slept on, just was wept on. Life was a can punched open maybe once a day, not from hunger, just from a sense of duty. Life was a knock on the door and an “Are you all right in there, lady? This is the landlady; I ain’t seen you in three or four whole days now, and I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t nothing the matter.”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel

“When you have an uneasy feeling that happiness is beginning to slip through your fingers you hang on as tightly as you can; you don’t give it an added push away from you.”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel

“Love is like an eggshell, isn’t it? It can never be put together again.”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel

“could feel his eyes on me, studying me from close range, and finally I chose to become aware, said: “What are you looking at me for like that?” “I’m trying to think what to call you.” “Isn’t it a little late for that?” “There’s something about Alberta; it’s too stiff; it doesn’t ride easily on the tongue. Do you remember the night we first met? I told you I’d give that up after a week, and it’s long past that now. I have to find some name for you. Some name of my own. Stand up and let me look at you. I’ll see if I can get one.”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Black Angel