Skip to content

Cormac McCarthy Quotes

1933–2023 United States

Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and screenwriter. He wrote twelve novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, modernist, and post-apocalyptic fiction genres.

United States
Essayists
Novelists
Playwrights
Screenwriters

Also known as: All the pretty horses, Child of god, The Sunset Limited, The sunset limited

Random Cormac McCarthy quote

35 quotes

I don't think goodness is something that you learn. If you're left adrift in the world to learn goodness from it, you would be in trouble.

I'm not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

There's no such thing as life without bloodshed.

The world has created no living thing it does not intend to destroy.

Stella Marris (2022)

All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage.

Blood Meridian (1985)

Our waking life's desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty.

Cities of the Plain (1998)

And she waited again at the front door with it open, poised between the maw of the dead and loveless house and the outer dark like a frail thief.

Outer Dark (1968)

Those who choose a love that can never be fulfilled will be hounded by a rage that can never be extinguished.

Stella Maris (2022)

When Wittgenstein convinced Russell that all math is a tautology, Russell gave up on math.

Stella Maris (2022)

You shouldn't worry about what people think of you because they don't do it that often.

Stella Maris (2022)

If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them?

The Crossing (1994)

The world has created no living thing that it does not intend to destroy.

Stella Maris (2022)

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

Stella Maris (2022)

Schopenhauer says somewhere that if the entire universe should vanish the only thing left would be music.

Stella Maris (2022)

The martyr who longs for the flames can be no right candidate for them.

Cities of the Plain (1998)

The days are long but the years are short.

Stella Maris (2022)

I've seen the meanness of humans till I dont know why God aint put out the sun and gone away.

Outer Dark (1968)

If the world has a mind then it's all worse than we thought.

Stella Maris (2022)

It's like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye'd just as well to do it all wrong. (p.71)

Child of God (1973)

If mathematical objects exist independently of human thought what else are they independent of? The universe, I suppose.

Stella Maris (2022)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Cormac McCarthy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.