diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index c5778db96..a3b967909 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: drake
 Title: A Pipeline Toolkit for Reproducible Computation at Scale
-Version: 7.13.4
+Version: 7.13.5
 Authors@R: c(
   person(
     given = c("William", "Michael"),
@@ -153,4 +153,4 @@ Suggests:
 Encoding: UTF-8
 Language: en-US
 Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
-RoxygenNote: 7.2.1
+RoxygenNote: 7.2.3
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index fe95d4a6c..0ae2ae2f5 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+# Version 7.13.5
+
+* Always pass a character vector to `rm()` and `remove()`.
+
 # Version 7.13.4
 
 * Fix HTML documentation files.
diff --git a/R/cache.R b/R/cache.R
index 219e580bf..faa076171 100644
--- a/R/cache.R
+++ b/R/cache.R
@@ -324,7 +324,7 @@ load_targets_impl.drake_dynamic <- function( # nolint
   subtarget_list
 ) {
   value <- get_subtargets(hashes, target, cache, subtargets, subtarget_list)
-  rm(list = target, envir = envir, inherits = FALSE)
+  rm(list = as.character(target), envir = envir, inherits = FALSE)
   assign(target, value, envir = envir, inherits = FALSE)
 }
 
diff --git a/R/create_drake_spec.R b/R/create_drake_spec.R
index 28e11a6c2..8cc79fbc1 100644
--- a/R/create_drake_spec.R
+++ b/R/create_drake_spec.R
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ cds_unload_conflicts <- function(imports, targets, envir, logger) {
   if (length(common)) {
     logger$term("unloading", length(common), "targets from environment")
   }
-  remove(list = common, envir = envir)
+  remove(list = as.character(common), envir = envir)
 }
 
 cds_analyze_imports <- function(args, imports) {
diff --git a/R/deprecated.R b/R/deprecated.R
index 6e7b52300..b07e92fad 100644
--- a/R/deprecated.R
+++ b/R/deprecated.R
@@ -118,14 +118,14 @@ configure_cache <- function(
   }
   short_exists <- cache$exists(key = "short_hash_algo", namespace = "config")
   long_exists <- cache$exists(key = "long_hash_algo", namespace = "config")
-  if (overwrite_hash_algos | !short_exists) {
+  if (overwrite_hash_algos || !short_exists) {
     cache$set(
       key = "short_hash_algo",
       value = short_hash_algo,
       namespace = "config"
     )
   }
-  if (overwrite_hash_algos | !long_exists) {
+  if (overwrite_hash_algos || !long_exists) {
     cache$set(
       key = "long_hash_algo",
       value = long_hash_algo,
@@ -564,7 +564,7 @@ load_main_example <- function(
     local = TRUE
   )$value
   for (file in c("report.Rmd", "raw_data.xlsx")) {
-    if (file.exists(file) & overwrite) {
+    if (file.exists(file) && overwrite) {
       warn0("Overwriting file ", file)
     }
     file.copy(
diff --git a/R/hash_tables.R b/R/hash_tables.R
index 91e207b44..ffccb748f 100644
--- a/R/hash_tables.R
+++ b/R/hash_tables.R
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ ht_exists <- function(ht, x) {
 }
 
 ht_del <- function(ht, x) {
-  remove(list = x, envir = ht, inherits = FALSE)
+  remove(list = as.character(x), envir = ht, inherits = FALSE)
 }
 
 ht_list <- function(ht) {
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ ht_list <- function(ht) {
 }
 
 ht_clear <- function(ht) {
-  rm(list = names(ht), envir = ht)
+  rm(list = as.character(names(ht)), envir = ht)
 }
 
 ht_clone <- function(ht) {
diff --git a/R/make.R b/R/make.R
index 89baddc31..35f5e0ce8 100644
--- a/R/make.R
+++ b/R/make.R
@@ -448,7 +448,10 @@ clear_make_memory <- function(config) {
     "meta_old"
   )
   for (key in envirs) {
-    remove(list = names(config[[key]]), envir = config[[key]])
+    remove(
+      list = as.character(names(config[[key]])),
+      envir = config[[key]]
+    )
   }
   config$cache$flush_cache()
   if (config$settings$garbage_collection) {
diff --git a/R/manage_memory.R b/R/manage_memory.R
index 22e09e264..f08998d4d 100644
--- a/R/manage_memory.R
+++ b/R/manage_memory.R
@@ -92,7 +92,11 @@ discard_targets <- function(discard_these, target, config) {
     return()
   }
   config$logger$disk("unload", discard_these, target = target)
-  rm(list = discard_these, envir = config$envir_targets, inherits = FALSE)
+  rm(
+    list = as.character(discard_these),
+    envir = config$envir_targets,
+    inherits = FALSE
+  )
   config$envir_loaded$targets <- setdiff(
     config$envir_loaded$targets,
     discard_these
@@ -108,7 +112,11 @@ discard_dynamic <- function(discard_these, config) {
     inherits = FALSE
   )
   whole_dynamic <- discard_these[index]
-  rm(list = whole_dynamic, envir = config$envir_dynamic, inherits = FALSE)
+  rm(
+    list = as.character(whole_dynamic),
+    envir = config$envir_dynamic,
+    inherits = FALSE
+  )
   config$envir_loaded$dynamic <- setdiff(
     config$envir_loaded$dynamic,
     whole_dynamic
@@ -116,14 +124,23 @@ discard_dynamic <- function(discard_these, config) {
 }
 
 clear_envir_subtargets <- function(target, config) {
-  rm(list = config$envir_loaded$subtargets, envir = config$envir_subtargets)
+  rm(
+    list = as.character(config$envir_loaded$subtargets),
+    envir = config$envir_subtargets
+  )
   config$envir_loaded$subtargets <- character(0)
 }
 
 clear_envir_targets <- function(target, config) {
   config$logger$disk("clear target envir", target = target)
-  rm(list = config$envir_loaded$targets, envir = config$envir_targets)
-  rm(list = config$envir_loaded$dynamic, envir = config$envir_dynamic)
+  rm(
+    list = as.character(config$envir_loaded$targets),
+    envir = config$envir_targets
+  )
+  rm(
+    list = as.character(config$envir_loaded$dynamic),
+    envir = config$envir_dynamic
+  )
   config$envir_loaded$targets <- character(0)
   config$envir_loaded$dynamic <- character(0)
 }
@@ -209,7 +226,7 @@ load_target_impl.bind <- function(target, cache, namespace, envir, verbose) {
   # Allow active bindings to overwrite existing variables.
   if (exists(x = target, envir = envir, inherits = FALSE)) {
     cli_msg("Replacing", target, "with an active binding.")
-    remove(list = target, envir = envir)
+    remove(list = as.character(target), envir = envir)
   }
   bindr::populate_env(
     env = envir,