Cormac McCarthy Quotes

American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter (1933–2023)

Add quote

Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and screenwriter. He wrote twelve novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, modernist, and post-apocalyptic fiction genres.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.

Alternative Names: Charles McCarthy • Charles Joseph McCarthy

From Wikidata (CC0)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

You shouldn't worry about what people think of you because they don't do it that often.

Your heart's desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.

A goodlookin horse is like a goodlookin woman, he said. They're always more trouble than what they're worth. What a man needs is just one that will get the job done.

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

When Wittgenstein convinced Russell that all math is a tautology, Russell gave up on math.

His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

Probably I dont believe in a lot of things that I used to believe in but that doesnt mean I dont believe in anything.

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

You can tell it any way you want but that's the way it is. I should of done it and I didn’t. And some part of me has never quit wishin I could go back. And I cant. I didn’t know you could steal your own life. And I didn’t know that it would bring you no more benefit than about anything else you might steal. I think I done the best with it I knew how but it still wasn’t mine. It never has been.

By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift.

People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they don't deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things

If you could breathe a breath so strong you could blow out the wolf. Like you blow out the copo. Like you blow out the fire from the candela. The wolf is made the way the world is made. You cannot touch the world. You cannot hold it in your hand for it is made of breath only.

You know that the things you put it your head stay there, right?'
'Yeah. But you remember some things, don't you?'
'Yeah. You remember the things you want to forget and forget the things you want to remember.

He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he is sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their blood in history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him? (p.147)