Cormac McCarthy quotes - page 5

When the shooting starts would you rather be armed or legal? (Cormac McCarthy)
He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
Only that man who has offered up himself entire to the blood of war, who has been to the floor of the pit and seen the horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance. - The judge. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
How would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said. I don't guess you would know it. You'd just be it. Nobody would know it. It wouldn't make any difference. When you die it's the same as if everybody else died too. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creatures could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? View quote
Cormac McCarthy
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. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
Men say they only learn this but he said that no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was? (Cormac McCarthy)
He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the words and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
He imagined the pain of the world to be like some formless parasitic being seeking out the warmth of human souls wherein to incubate and he thought he knew what made one liable to its visitations. What he had not known was that it was mindless and so had no way to know the limits of those souls and what he feared was that there might be no limits. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
At one time in the world there were woods that no one owned. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule? View quote
Cormac McCarthy
Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your permission. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
Each the others world entire. (Cormac McCarthy)
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. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
It was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation. View quote
Cormac McCarthy
He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his doing. View quote
Cormac McCarthy