Quotes from Cormac McCarthy

Where men can´t live gods fare no better

Imperilment is bottomless. As long as you are breathing you can always be more scared.

Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth.

remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

They'd put an awning up over the gravesite but the weather was all sideways and it did no good. The canvas rattled and flapped and the preacher's words were lost in the wind.

But there were two things they agreed upon wholly and that were never spoken and that was that God had put horses on earth to work cattle and that other than cattle there was no wealth proper to a man.

Non voglio fare nessuna promessa, disse. È così che si finisce per farsi male

It aint of a sexual nature is it? No. That's all right. Go ahead and tell it anyways.

There was no wind and the silence out there was greatly favored by every kind of fugitive as was the open country itself and no mountains close at hand for enemies to black themselves against.

After the 1931 papers it was clear to him that we are capable of mathematical insights that a Universal Truth Machine is not.

What is true of one man, said the judge, is true of many.

Contemplating death is supposed to have a certain philosophical value. Palliative even. Trivial to say, but the best way to die well is to live well. To die for another would give your death meaning. Ignoring for the time being the fact that the other is going to die anyway.

dont know. I know that you can make a good case that all of human sorrow is grounded in injustice. And that sorrow is what is left when rage is expended and found to be impotent.

It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. And that is somethin I dont want to be wrong about.

Quando sognerai di un mondo che non è mai esistito o di uno che non esisterà mai e in cui sei di nuovo felice, vorrà dire che ti sei arreso. Capisci? E tu non ti puoi arrendere. Io non te lo permetterò.

I'm not by myself. I'm schizophrenic.

they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.

Any time you quit hearin Sir and Mam the end is pretty much in sight.

I dont want anybody talking about me. To say where I was or what I said when I was there. I mean, you could talk about me maybe. But nobody could say that it was me. I could be anybody. I think in times like these the less said the better. If something had happened and we were survivors and we met on the road then we'd have something to talk about. But we're not. So we dont.

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.

He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

La gente si preparava sempre al domani. A me sembrava assurdo. Il domani non si stava certo preparando per loro. Non sapeva neppure che esistessero.

The next day on the far side of the mountain we encountered the two lads that had deserted us. Hangin upside down in a tree. They'd been skinned and I can tell ye it does very little for a man's appearance.

It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God—who knows all that can be known—seems powerless to change.