Quotes from Cormac McCarthy

A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Will or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well.

How these things end. In confusion and curses and blood.

You think that nuclear war is inevitable. I agree with Plato that only the dead have seen an end to war. And people dont fight with rocks when they have guns. Etcetera and so on.

Where is Shelby, whom you left to the mercies of Elias in the desert, and where is Tate whom you abandoned in the mountains? Where are the ladies, ah the fair and tender ladies with whom you danced at the governor's ball when you were a hero anointed with the blood of the enemies of the republic you'd elected to defend? -Cormac mcCarthy, Blood Meridian

Nothing's forever. It wasnt the sort of news that a cat likes to hear.

You speak truer than you know. But I will tell you. 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 horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance.

Solo hay una verdad, dijo John Grady. La verdad es lo que ocurrió. No es lo que sale de la boca de alguien.

and they would listen to her comments and then move on. That the search for its definition was inexorably buried in and subject to the definition it sought. Or that the world's reality could not be a category among others therein contained.

There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto

On the day of his death he would see her face and he could hope to carry that beauty into the darkness with him, the last pagan on earth, singing softly on his pallet in an unknown tongue.

They did not smell like horses. They smelled like what they were, wild animals. He held the horse's face against his chest and he could feel along his inner thighs the blood pumping through the arteries and he could smell the fear and he cupped his hand over the horse's eyes and stroked them and he did not stop talking to the horse at all, speaking in a low steady voice and telling it all that he intended to do and cupping the animal's eyes and stroking the terror out.

She said that femininity encoded mandates that were far less forgiving than anything men were familiar with.

The world has created no living thing that it does not intend to destroy. I suppose that's true. What then? Is that all that the world has in mind? If the world has a mind then it's all worse than we thought.

The boat is going to Texas. Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been.

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 horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance.

I'm of two minds about this shit. Two minds. Yeah. I aint sure I'm cut out for domestic bliss. Probably not.

Entonces despertó y se quedó contemplando las estrellas a través del zarzal de ramas de los árboles e intentó dilucidar qué sitio podía ser aquel donde se encontraba Boyd, pero Boyd estaba muerto y hecho una piltrafa envuelto en el petate aguas arriba entre los árboles, y Billy bajó la cara y se echó a llorar.

Gleda, bled i prljav. Ne ume ni da ?ita ni da piše, a u njemu ve? klija naklonost ka bezumnom nasilju. Sva se istorija vidi na tom licu: dete, otac ?ovekov

Él se levantó, dejó la servilleta en la mesa, cogió el sombrero que había dejado en la otra silla y se lo puso. Dijo que, en efecto, le esperaba un largo viaje. Dijo que no sabía cuál iba a ser el final de ese viaje o si sabría verlo cuando llegase, y luego le pidió que rezara por él, pero ella dijo que ya había pensado en hacerlo antes de que él se lo pidiera.

He ate the last of the eggs and wiped the plate with the tortilla and ate the tortilla and drank the last of the coffee and wiped his mouth and looked up and thanked her.

I think people regret what they didnt do more than what they did. I think everbody has things they failed to do. You cant see what is coming, Bobby. And if you could it is no guarantee you'd make the right choice even then.

The dying man sang with great clarity and intention and the riders setting forth upcountry may have ridden more slowly the longer to hear him for they were of just these qualities themselves.

The darker picture is always the correct one. When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different. I've no idea why we are even still here but in all probability we will not be here much longer.

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