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Cormac McCarthy: 540 quotes7 likes

“He can neither read nor write and in him already there broods a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Source: Blood Meridian (1985), Chapter I

“Drink up, he said. Drink up. This night thy soul may be required of thee.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

The judge
Blood Meridian (1985)

“The priest looked at him. Do I know you? he said.
Suttree placed one hand on the pew in front of him. An old woman was going along the altar rail with a dusting rag. He struggled to his feet. No, he said. You dont know me.
The priest stepped back, inspecting is clothes, his fishstained shoes.
I just fell asleep a minute. I was resting.
The priest gave a little smile, lightly touched with censure, remonstrance gentled. God's house is not exactly the place to take a nap, he said.
It's not God's house.
I beg your pardon?
It's not God's house.
Oh?
Suttree waved his hand vaguely and stepped past the priest and went down the aisle. The priest watched him. He smiled sadly, but a smile for that.”

Cormac McCarthy book Suttree

page 255
Suttree (1979)

“We think we are the victims of time. In reality, the way of the world isn't fixed anywhere. How could that be possible? We are our own journey. And therefore we are time as well. We are the same. Fugitive. Inscrutable. Ruthless.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

“People see what they want to see.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)

“How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2005)

“He said that while one would like to say that God will punish those who do such things and that people often speak in just this way it was his experience that God could not be spoken for and that men with wicked histories often enjoyed lives of comfort and that they died in peace and were buried with honor. He said that it was a mistake to expect too much of justice in this world. He said that the notion that evil is seldom rewarded was greatly overspoken for if there were no advantage to it then men would shun it and how could virtue then be attached to its repudiation?”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

“I can man anything that eats. Get me a piece of jerky. —John Joel Glanton.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)

“It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2005)

“There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.”

Cormac McCarthy

The New York Times, April 19, 1992, "Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction" http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html by Richard B. Woodward

“I cant back up and start over. But I dont see the point in slobberin over it. And I cant see where it would make me feel better to be able to point a finger at somebody else.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

All the Pretty Horses (1992)

“It had already occurred to him that he would probably never be safe again in his life and he wondered if that was something that you got used to. And if you did?”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2005)

“The martyr who longs for the flames can be no right candidate for them.”

Cormac McCarthy book Cities of the Plain

Cities of the Plain (1998)

“It's like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye'd just as well to do it all wrong.”

Cormac McCarthy book Child of God

Source: Child of God (1973), p.71

“Do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That's right. Others come in to govern for them”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Source: Blood Meridian (1985), Chapter III

“White: You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesnt mean anything. You've become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left.”

Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited

The Sunset Limited (2006)

“This is a terrible place to die in.
Where’s a good one?”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)