Cormac McCarthy Quotes - Page 12

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They watched storms out there so distant they could not be heard, the silent lightning flaring sheetwise and the thin black spine of the mountain chain fluttering and sucked away again in the dark. They saw wild horses racing on the plain, pounding their shadows down the night and- leaving in the moonlight a vaporous dust like the palest stain of their passing.

Cormac McCarthy

Horse, Dark, Night

Cormac McCarthy (2015). “Blood Meridian: Picador Classic”, p.49, Pan Macmillan

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He thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it.

Cormac McCarthy

Punishment, Comfort, World

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road film tie-in”, p.33, Pan Macmillan

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They came upon themselves in a mirror and he almost raised the pistol. It's us, Papa, the boy whispered. It's us.

Cormac McCarthy

Boys, Mirrors, Papa

Cormac McCarthy (2007). “The Road”, p.111, Vintage

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He poured the tumbler full. Drink up, he said. The world goes on. We have dancing nightly and this night is no exception. The straight and the winding way are one and now that you are here what do the years count since last we two met together? Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.

Cormac McCarthy

Memories, Past, Night

Cormac McCarthy (2015). “Blood Meridian: Picador Classic”, p.348, Pan Macmillan

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in dreams it is often the case that the greatest extravagances seem bereft of their power to astonish and the most improbable chimeras seem commonplace.

Cormac McCarthy

Dream, Extravagance, Cases

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “Cities of the Plain”, p.285, Pan Macmillan

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He lay on his back in his blankets and looked our where the quartermoon lay cocked over the heel of the mountains. In the false blue dawn the Pleiades seemed to be rising up into the darkness above the world and dragging all the stars away, the great diamond of Orion and Cepella and the signature of Cassiopeia all rising up through the phosphorous dark like a sea-net. He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.

Cormac McCarthy

Stars, Sleep, Dark

Cormac McCarthy (2012). “All the Pretty Horses”, p.62, Pan Macmillan

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Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?

Cormac McCarthy

Lasts, Left

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road film tie-in”, p.179, Pan Macmillan

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There was someone there and they had been there. There was no one there. There was someone there and they had been there and they had not left but there was no one there.

Cormac McCarthy

Left

Cormac McCarthy (2013). “The Border Trilogy”, p.194, Pan Macmillan

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Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung.

Cormac McCarthy

Dream, Axes, Hands

Cormac McCarthy (2013). “The Border Trilogy”, p.942, Pan Macmillan

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You either stick or you quit. And I wouldnt quit you I dont care what you done.

Cormac McCarthy

I Dont Care, Done, Sticks

Cormac McCarthy (2013). “The Border Trilogy”, p.149, Pan Macmillan

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Maybe. Anyway, some men get what they want. No man. Or perhaps only briefly so as to lose it. Or perhaps only to prove to the dreamer that the world of his longing made real is no longer that world at all.

Cormac McCarthy

Real, Men, Dreamer

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “Cities of the Plain”, p.135, Pan Macmillan

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He can give me what you cannot. Death is not a lover. Oh yes, he is.

Cormac McCarthy

Giving, Lovers, Give Me

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road film tie-in”, p.58, Pan Macmillan

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... a man leaves much when he leaves his own country.

Cormac McCarthy

Country, Travel, Men

Cormac McCarthy (2013). “The Border Trilogy”, p.215, Pan Macmillan

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They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.

Cormac McCarthy

Crush, Kissing, Fire

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Each the others world entire.

Cormac McCarthy

World

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road film tie-in”, p.4, Pan Macmillan

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You keep runnin that mouth and I'm goin to take you back there and screw you.

Cormac McCarthy

Sex, Mouths, Screw You

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “No Country for Old Men”, p.16, Pan Macmillan

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I don't know what of our culture is going to survive, or if we survive. If you look at the Greek plays, they're really good. And there's just a handful of them. Well, how good would they be if there were 2,500 of them? But that's the future looking back at us. Anything you can think of, there's going to be millions of them. Just the sheer number of things will devalue them. I don't care whether it's art, literature, poetry or drama, whatever. The sheer volume of it will wash it out. I mean, if you had thousands of Greek plays to read, would they be that good? I don't think so.

Cormac McCarthy

Art, Drama, Mean

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When we're all gone at last then there'll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. He'll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He'll say: where did everybody go? And that's how it will be. What's wrong with that?

Cormac McCarthy

Gone, Lasts

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road”, p.184, Pan Macmillan

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It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.

Cormac McCarthy

War, Men, Thinking

Cormac McCarthy (2015). “Blood Meridian: Picador Classic”, p.262, Pan Macmillan

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Peering down into the water where the morning sun fashioned wheels of light, coronets fanwise in which lay trapped each twig, each grain of sediment, long flakes and blades of light in the dusty water sliding away like optic strobes where motes sifted and spun.

Cormac McCarthy

Morning, Light, Long

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “Suttree”, p.7, Pan Macmillan

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Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die.

Cormac McCarthy

Curse, Dies

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road”, p.120, Pan Macmillan

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Do you have any notion of how goddamned crazy you are?

Cormac McCarthy

Crazy, Notion

Cormac McCarthy (2007). “No Country for Old Men”, p.175, Vintage

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Fear of an enemy can often blind men to other hazards, not least the shape which they themselves make in the world.

Cormac McCarthy

Men, Enemy, Hazards

Cormac McCarthy (2007). “No Country for Old Men”, p.198, Vintage

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When God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.

Cormac McCarthy

Running, Men, Years

Cormac McCarthy (2015). “Blood Meridian: Picador Classic”, p.20, Pan Macmillan

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She smiled. I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think. Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.

Cormac McCarthy

Thinking, People, Snow

Cormac McCarthy (2010). “No Country for Old Men”, p.89, Pan Macmillan

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Born: July 20, 1933
Occupation: Novelist
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