I wasn’t that good you know. What I was was a guy who could write a little, publishing in magazines surrounded by people who couldn’t write at all. So I looked pretty good. But I...

Freedom breeds uncertainty; uncertainty invites chaos.

A Dick and Jane story written in blood and battered bone.See Spot.See Spot run.See Spot run from a gaping chest wound.Run Spot run.See Detective smear Spot into a baggy for DNA testing.

A quick butchers shows up Old Bill three-handed, also a particularly nasty female grass–-and if looks were acid baths the two she collects from us would reduce her to gristle quicker than Mrs. Durand-Deacon.

When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.

A second red-orange spearhead leaps straight at O’Shaughnessy. The whole world seems to stand still. Then the gun behind it crashes, and there’s a cataclysm of pain all over him, and a shock goes through...

I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.

He was wearing a gleaming cream-coloured linen suit, and a Panama hat. The weirdest thing about this was that he was not the most outlandish-looking person in the room by a long way. Not that...

Ever since I could remember, She was all that mattered.

He told himself she wasn’t really such a bad person, she was just a pest, she was sticky, there was something misplaced in her make-up, something that kept her from fading clear of people when...

Did you ever think much about jobs? I mean, some of the jobs people land in? You see a guy giving haircuts to dogs, or maybe going along the curb with a shovel, scooping up...

And then, with a shock like high-voltage coursing through me, the phone beside me started pealing thinly.I just stood there and stared at it, blood draining from my face. A call to a tollbooth? It...

It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.

The dark clouds make the black sea. (Les nuages noirs – Font la mer noire)

I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the woman.

Winter was gray and mean upon the city and every night was a package of cold bleak hours, like the hours in a cell that had no door.

I sat down in a booth, and the waitress shoved a menu in front of me. There wasn’t anything on it that sounded good, and anyway, one look at her and my stomach turned flipflops…...

He’s prowling back and forth like a lion with distemper now. There’s a shiny streak down one side of his face. “I shouldn’t have let her go ahead – I ought to be hung! Something’s...

Being a Berlin cop in 1942 was a little like putting down mousetraps in a cage full of tigers.

Normally, I don’t take to drinking so early in the morning, but I bend the rules when I get my ass kicked before sunrise.”–Thomas Morelli

I preyed on this sort of thing, discontentment, a clash of passions among the rivals, and the zealots. Open sores opened secrets. That’s how I roll.” Jackson Guild, The Trinity Conspiracy, Betrayal at Black Mesa

In Woolrich’s crime fiction there is a gradual development from pulp to noir. The earlier a story, the more likely it stresses pulp elements: one-dimensional macho protagonists, preposterous methods of murder, hordes of cardboard gangsters,...

The phone rang. Softly, in actuality, yet it seemed loud and ominous, as phones do at night in dark hotel rooms.

And he’s alone there, with the unconscious pilot lying a little way off for company, and some other guy he’s never even seen, only spoken to over the radio.He wants to sleep so badly –...

She killed to get the dream she wanted, then found out it didn’t want her back.

Inevitably, his vision verged toward the fantastic; he published a scattering of stories – most included in this volume – which appeared to conform to that genre at least to the degree that the fuller...

Pulling out onto the highway I noticed a stone pillar commemorating the Donner Party. They were a true testament to the American spirit, push forward at all costs and eat the dead when necessary. Wasn’t...

The viewpoint character in each story is usually someone trapped in a living nightmare, but this doesn’t guarantee that we and the protagonist are at one. In fact Woolrich often makes us pull away from...

It’s a case of mistaken identity. It’s one big mistake. You weren’t even in the country when it happened.”Maja in the short story ‘Metro’ by Steen Langstrup

The struggle doesn’t last long; it’s too unequal. Their momentary surprise overcome, they close in on him. The well-directed slice of a gun-butt slackens the good arm; it’s easy to pry the disabled one from...

I’ll remember you… I remember everyone I’ve lost.

The arctic pavement turned into a whirlwind of viscous blood. The fiery shadows on the metropolitan walls blitzed him, avenging overachievers starved for vengeance. He fell into the abyss. His migraine made his head feel...

Taking my drink, I moved around the bar to her. Her smile was a little crooked as I sat down. I guessed it had been a wet night for platinum blondes.

The hallmarks of the noir style are fear, guilt and loneliness, breakdown and despair, sexual obsession and social corruption, a sense that the world is controlled by, malignant forces preying on us, a rejection of...

I did.”Conversation between Alis K and WillyThe Informer

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...

…Alright, Mandy Valems,” Alecto agreed.

It’s time to end the brain drain and move to brain gain. It’s time for a great mind of Nigeria to return home. You’re the mind we need, Doctor.

Banks watched the sun creep over the forest of oak trees and a crack of light broke through the night and grew longer and wider and ate the black like a fungus until the darkness...

This may not be art as art commonly goes; the lack of discipline, of control, would seem to rule it out of that category. And yet Woolrich’s lack of control over emotions is a crucial...

There is always a unique atmosphere in the car when you drive through the City with a dead body in the back.

Human beings shouldn’t have to enter such doors, shouldn’t have to stay behind them. No moon ever entered there, no stars, no anything at all. They were worse than the grave, for in the grave...

When a beautiful blonde asks, you don’t say no.

My blessings outweight my regrets

I’d done it, I’d crossed the line between accepted behavior and behavior most of the population would consider a lynching offense, and that morning I felt as real as any of the men in the...

But suspense presupposes uncertainty. No matter how nightmarish the situation, real suspense is impossible when we know in advance that the protagonist will prevail (as we would if Woolrich had used series characters) or will...

Well, you know what I mean …”Conversation on Radio Fake 112.8 MHzIn The Shadow of Sadd

I hate the world. Everything comes into it so clean and goes out so dirty. (from COVER CHARGE – currently not listed)

I never met an addict who came from a nice home . I’ve met addicts that came from families that had money and nice houses. But never from a nice home.

I cadged a complimentary green matchbook with a gold bird icon from the Bell canning jar. Later we’d use the matches to light our spliffs. My fingertips tapped the stem to the gizmo that dinged...