Quotes from Carson McCullers

The warring love and hatred—love for his people and hatred for the oppressors of his people—that left him exhausted and sick in spirit. 'Daughter

She looked him full in the face with the most amazed expression. Even now he could not think of it without a shudder. And after a horribly long stare Alison had burst out laughing yes, laughing. She laughed so hard that she choked herself and someone had to beat her on the back. Finally she excused herself from the table. And all through that tormenting evening whenever he looked at her she gave him such a mocking smile.

If you walk along the main street on an August afternoon there is nothing whatsoever to do.

This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. Frankie had become an unjoined person who hung around in the doorways, and she was afraid.

Next to music, beer was best.

We are homesick most for the places we have never known.

We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.

How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?

The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.

The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.

She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram fall of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house.

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.

In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.

I want - I want - I want - was all that she could think about - but just what this real want was she did not know.

I´m a stranger in a strange land.

When a person knows and can't make the others understand, what does he do?

And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many.

The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome.

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

All we can do is go around telling the truth.

The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.

I do not have any home. So why should I be homesick?

I am not meant to be alone and without you who understands.