Paranoia. The more you think of an imaginary problem, the more you feel as though it’s real –

My ghost is the only soul who ever comes to cry on my grave… Only the skies cried sincerely on my funeral.

You can speak to me like you haven’t spoken even to yourself.

I lie more convincingly than I tell the truth.

I can be anything – and nothing, and everything at the same time. It all depends on the role I am in.

Woolrich had a genius for creating types of story perfectly consonant with his world: the noir cop story, the clock race story, the waking nightmare, the oscillation thriller, the headlong through the night story, the...