Cormac McCarthy Quotes

Ever dumb thing I ever done in my life there was a decision I made before that got me into it. It was never the dumb thing. It was always some choice I'd made before it.

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstitiion will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.

I dont see what that has to do with catchin birds.

The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos.

That would be a hell of a zoo.

The judge smiled. Yes, he said. Even so.

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.

You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.

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.

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

Given charge Ballard would have made things more orderly in the woods and in men's souls. (p.128)

I thought about David Bohm. He wrote a really good book on quantum mechanics — largely because Einstein had half convinced him that the theory was faulty. He wanted to get down his thoughts on paper. By the time he'd finished the book he didn't believe in the theory.

Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said.

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.

What could a child know of the darkness of God's plan? Or how flesh is so frail it is hardly more than a dream

Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.

Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your permission.

There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a woman cannot. She cannot.