CMCormac McCarthy

226 collected words

Cormac McCarthy

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Quotations and sayings

01Undated

I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this., New York Times, April 19, 1992]

Cormac McCarthy / quote

02Undated

I think by the time you're grown you're as happy as you're goin to be. You'll have good times and bad times, but in the end you'll be about as happy as you was before. Or as unhappy. I've knowed people that just never did get the hang of it.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

03Undated

You keep runnin that mouth and I'm goin to take you back there and screw you.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

04Undated

Carry the fire.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

05Undated

This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don't give up.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

06Undated

Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

07Undated

It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

08Undated

In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting. I've thought a great deal about my life and my country. I think there is little that can be truly known. My family has been fortunate. Others were less so. As they are often quick to point out.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

09Undated

Every day is a lie. But you are dying. That is not a lie.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

10Undated

And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly. Like certain ancient frescoes entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

11Undated

He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

12Undated

This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

13Undated

When we're all gone at last then there'll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. He'll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He'll say: where did everybody go? And that's how it will be. What's wrong with that?

Cormac McCarthy / quote

14Undated

Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock?

Cormac McCarthy / quote

15Undated

The dead boy in his arms hung with his head back and those partly opened eyes beheld nothing at all out of that passing landscape of street or wall or paling sky or the figures of the children who stood blessing themselves in the gray light. This man and his burden passed on forever out of that nameless crossroads and the women stepped once more into the street and the children followed and all continued on to their appointed places which as some believe were chosen long ago even to the beginning of the world.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

16Undated

I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

17Undated

You are either born a writer or you are not.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

18Undated

My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

19Undated

Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of your head driving you nuts, you may not do anything. It's not a good arrangement. If I were God, I wouldn't have done it that way., Nov. 20, 2009]

Cormac McCarthy / quote

20Undated

There is no God and we are his prophets.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

21Undated

Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

22Undated

In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure, death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing, the world lies waiting.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

23Undated

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

Cormac McCarthy / quote

24Undated

The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.

Cormac McCarthy / quote