Robert Bloch

People never really run away from anything. The rain didn't last long, did it? You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch.

Sometimes... when she talks to me like that... I feel I'd like to go up there... and curse her... and-and-and leave her forever! Or at least defy her! But I know I can't. She's ill.

What do you know about caring? Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places? The laughing, and the tears, and those cruel eyes studying you? My mother THERE?

People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately!

I couldn't do that. Who would look after her? The fire in her fireplace would go out. It would be cold and damp up there like a grave. If you love sombody, you wouldn't leave them even if they treat your badly. Do you understand? I don't hate my mother. I hate at what she's become. I hate her illness.