The collection / 226 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1978 AD

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

Cormac McCarthy / quote

02c. 1978 AD

He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his doing.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

03c. 1978 AD

I have no enemies. I dont permit such a thing.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

04c. 1978 AD

Then don't. I can't help you. They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I don't dream at all. You say you can't? Then don't do it. That's all. Because I am done with my own whorish heart and I have been for a long time. You talk about taking a stand but there is no stand to take. My heart was ripped out of me the night he was born so don't ask for sorrow now. There is none. Maybe you'll be good at this. I doubt it, but who knows. The one thing I can tell you is that you won't survive for yourself. I know because I would have never have come this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and sheild it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

05c. 1978 AD

There was someone there and they had been there. There was no one there. There was someone there and they had been there and they had not left but there was no one there.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

06c. 1978 AD

What could a child know of the darkness of God's plan? Or how flesh is so frail it is hardly more than a dream

Cormac McCarthy / quote

07c. 1978 AD

The small wad of burning paper drew down to a wisp of flame and then died out leaving a faint pattern for just a moment in the incandescence like the shape of a flower, a molten rose. Then all was dark again.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

08c. 1978 AD

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

Cormac McCarthy / quote

09c. 1978 AD

I remember in grammar school the teacher asked if anyone had any hobbies. I was the only one with any hobbies and I had every hobby there was... name anything, no matter how esoteric. I could have given everyone a hobby and still had 40 or 50 to take home.

Cormac McCarthy / quote

10c. 1978 AD

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.

Cormac McCarthy / quote