Quotes from Cormac McCarthy

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

He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.

People think they know what they want but they generally don't. Sometimes if they're lucky they'll get it anyways.

What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too. So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you. Okay.

I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.

A man is always right to pursue the thing he loves.No matter even if it kills him?I think so. Yes. No matter what.

If there's one thing on this planet you don't look like it's a bunch of good luck walkin around.

Men of God and men of war have strange affinities.

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.

They were watching, out there past men's knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.

Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.