Rendezvous in Black Quotes

“His name was Johnny Marr, and he looked like—Johnny Marr. Like his given name sounded. Like any Johnny, anywhere, any time.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“He was alone now. The way he wanted to be. Even in grief, it’s better to be alone than with someone else. He cried a little, first. In the way of a man who is not used to crying, who has seldom if ever cried before. In a subdued, stifled way, head within his arms. Then that was over.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“She has just seen imminent death peer forth at her from a living face. She is one of the wise ones, one of the forewarned ones; she ran away in time.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“A few of them try to be kind to him in odd, haphazard ways. Human beings are funny. One of the young fellows he used to know goes by one night, silently puts a package of cigarettes into his hand, goes on without a word. To keep him from being quite so lonely while he waits. One particularly raw night the drugstore man suddenly comes out to the door, thrusts a mug of steaming coffee into his hands. Again without a word. Takes the mug in again when he’s emptied it. Just that once—never before then, never again. Human beings are funny. They are so cruel, they are so kind; they are so calloused, they are so tender.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“It would always be eight o’clock now, on his watch, in his heart, in his brain.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“And no harm could happen to her now, no harm such as had befallen that other poor unknown girl before; he’d taken care of that. As long as it wasn’t quite eight, she was still on her way. She’d stay alive all night now. She’d stay alive forever.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“But the harm went in deep. Deep, into places where it could never be gotten out again. Into places that, once they’re sick, can never be made sound again. Deep into the mind—into the reason.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“He was still there. He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t have any place to go. In the whole world there was no place to go but this.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“Tapping his foot lightly, not in impatience, but because his foot was singing love songs to the ground.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“You can’t describe light very easily. You can tell where it is, but not what it is. Light was where she was. There may have been prettier girls, but there have never been lovelier ones. It came from inside and out both; it was a blend. She was everyone’s first love, as he looks back later once she is gone and tells himself she must have been. She was the promise made to everyone at the start, that can never quite be carried out afterward, and never is.

Cynics, seeing her go by, might have said, “Why, she’s just another pretty girl; they’re all about like that.” Cynics don’t know about these things. The way she walked, the way she talked, the little slow smile she had for him as they drew toward one another upon meeting, or the same smile in reverse, going backward as they parted—those things were only for Johnny Marr to see. He had special eyes for her, just as she had for him.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“He was waiting to be completed, he wasn’t meant to stop the way he was.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“Sometimes it seemed they’d been waiting all their lives. Well, they had. Literally, no figure of speech. Because they’d first met, you see, when she was seven and he was eight. And they’d first fallen in love when he was eight and she was seven. Sometimes it does happen that way.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“They had a date at eight every night. If it was raining, if it was snowing; if there was a moon, or if there was none. It wasn’t new, it hadn’t just come up. Last year it had been that way, the year before, the year before that. But it wasn’t going to keep on that way much longer: just hello at eight, good-bye at twelve. In a little while, in just a week or two, their date was going to be a permanent one; twenty-four hours a day. In just a little while from now, in June. And boy, they both agreed, June sure was slow in coming around this year. It never seemed to get here.”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“And what is love anyway but the unattainable, the reaching out toward an illusion?”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black

“How do you go about finding out who the best-loved woman in a guy's life is? Ask him?”
― Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black