Cormac McCarthy Quotes

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

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

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And as he lay there a far crack of lightning went bluely down the sky and bequeathed him in an embryonic bird's first fissured vision of the world and transpiring instant and outrageous from dark to dark a final view of the grotto and the shapeless white plasm struggling upon the rich and incunabular moss like a lank swamp hare.

The man sat watching the road, the weedstem twirling in his mouth and the threadthin shadow of it going long and short upon his face like a sundial's hand beneath a sun berserk.

Yes, he said. I busted him and he busted me. That's fair, ain't it?
The boy was still silent, calmly incredulous.
No, Sylder went on, I ain't forgettin about jail. You think because he arrested me that throws it off again I reckon? I don't. It's his job. It's what he gets paid for. To arrest people that break the law. And I didn't jest break the law, I made a livin at it.

I don't think goodness is something that you learn. If you're left adrift in the world to learn goodness from it, you would be in trouble.

There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think 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.