Victor LaValle Quotes

People from New York have been calling, to see if I'm still alive. When I answer the phone, you can hear the disappointment in their voice.

Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

No trick or treaters came to my house for Halloween. For some reason, people around here are scared of me.

We don't like our lives being monitored, so when someone dies alone, perhaps there are always answers that remain out of reach.

A different word usually came to my mind when I thought of Yeva, though it did sound a lot like “witch.

My new apartment might be a place where there are lots of children. They might gather on my porch to play, and when I step out for groceries, they will ask me, "Hi, do you have any kids?" and then, "Why not, don't you like kids?" "I like kids," I will explain. "I like kids very much." And when I almost run over them with my car, in my driveway, I will feel many different things.

I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.

The Witch's Life" When I was a child there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story window from behind the wrinkled curtains and sometimes she would open the window and yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp and a voice like a boulder. I think of her sometimes now and wonder if I am becoming her.

If people work together, if they can keep a cooperative spirit and use their ingenuity and balance it all with good humor and good will, then there's nothing to be afraid of. That's the sappy part of it, ... On the other hand, every Halloween for many years when my kids were trick-or-treating I would put on my 'Ghostbusters' jumpsuit with a police flashlight to protect all the kids from ghosts.

So the first time you hear the concept of Halloween when you're a kid your brain can't even process the information. You're like: "What is this? What did you say?" "What did you say about giving out candy? Who's giving out candy?" "Everyone that we know is just giving out candy!"

Lots of things are mysteries. But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them. It's just that scientists haven't found the answer yet.

I went to Paterson Public School No. 6. At the time, it was the worst school in the city. Ain't nobody want their kids to go to School 6; it was that bad. But it was where we lived. If you grow up in a bad area, there are bad things around it.

It must really be a lonelier journey than anyone could imagine. Cutting through absolute darkness, encountering nothing but the occasional hydrogen atom. Flying blindly into the abyss, believing therein lie the answers to the mysteries of the universe.

What's in the cave, Russell?' Madigan asked with heavy sarcasm. I shrugged. 'Rocks. Lots of 'em.' 'Don't patronize me.' His voice lowered to a hiss. 'What else is in the cave?' I looked him straight in the eye and spoke one word. 'Mud.

It was the hat. He looked sweet in the hat. How could a man in a fuzzy blue hat have used human bones to pave his roads?

Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life - ''possessive'', even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life, only you know why his body has to be pushed into the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth.

Our dream dashes itself against the great mystery like a wasp against a window pane. Less merciful than man, God never opens the window.

He rose and turned toward the lights of town. The tidepools bright as smelterpots among the dark rocks where the phosphorescent seacrabs clambered back. Passing through the salt grass he looked back. The horse had not moved. A ship's light winked in the swells. The colt stood against the horse with its head down and the horse was watching, out there past men's knowing, where the stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.

If you're a guy over 30 by yourself in the hotel pool, you automatically look like a murderer who's just relaxing after he strangled a family. "Yeah-that dad was a tough one to kill."

The town kept its secrets, and the Marsten House brooded over it like a ruined king.

I would like to make one thing quite clear. ... I never explain anything.

When I was a kid, I had two friends, and they were imaginary and they would only play with each other.

I definitely isolate, but I also always have people in front of me, and I have to be OK with that. I'm in a business where, on the set, you're around two hundred people every day, and if you're high on the call sheet, you sort of set the tone for the set. And you want people to feel appreciated, and you want to ask them how their kids are. You want to talk to people and invest in them and let them know that they're appreciated and heard. But then I do like to just kind of withdraw.

Becoming an actor wasn’t a choice – it was something I was forced into. At 3, you can’t make those choices... I supported my family, and if I got fired or missed an audition, I’d be punished as if I’d messed up in school. I was starved, because they wanted to keep my weight at a certain place; my hair was bleached – that was my life. I wasn’t allowed to play with kids on my block or ride a bike or play ball, in case I got a scratch – I wasn’t even allowed to be bar mitzvahed because I couldn’t attend enough lessons.

If you were a nerd computer geek in 1982, the amount of isolation you felt - at least what I experienced, or the kids I knew, the isolation they felt - was almost total. They were not part of society; no one thought they were cool.