Cormac McCarthy - People Quotes

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People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there.

Cormac McCarthy
People think they know what they want but they generally don't. Sometimes if they're lucky they'll get it anyways.

Cormac McCarthy
You think people was meaner then than they are now? the deputy said.
The old man was looking out at the flooded town. No, he said, I don't. I think people are the same from the day God first made one.

Cormac McCarthy
And the answer, said the judge. If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons.

Cormac McCarthy
It is not my experience that life's difficulties make people more charitable.

Cormac McCarthy
It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people can't be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it.

Cormac McCarthy
People say that the coyote is a witch. Often the witch is a coyote.

Cormac McCarthy
He said that while one would like to say that God will punish those who do such things and that people often speak in just this way it was his experience that God could not be spoken for and that men with wicked histories often enjoyed lives of comfort and that they died in peace and were buried with honor. He said that it was a mistake to expect too much of justice in this world. He said that the notion that evil is seldom rewarded was greatly overspoken for if there were no advantage to it then men would shun it and how could virtue then be attached to its repudiation?

Cormac McCarthy
She smiled. I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think. Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.

Cormac McCarthy
The prospect of outsized profits leads people to exaggerate their own capabilities. In their minds. They pretend to themselves that they are in control of events where perhaps they are not. And it is always one's stance upon uncertain ground that invites the attentions of one's enemies. Or discourages it.

Cormac McCarthy
Yes, he said. I busted him and he busted me. That's fair, ain't it?
The boy was still silent, calmly incredulous.
No, Sylder went on, I ain't forgettin about jail. You think because he arrested me that throws it off again I reckon? I don't. It's his job. It's what he gets paid for. To arrest people that break the law. And I didn't jest break the law, I made a livin at it.

Cormac McCarthy
People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they don't deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I don't recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me. But he did.

Cormac McCarthy
Do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That's right. Others come in to govern for them

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

Cormac McCarthy
He reached down and tapped Suttree's knee with his forefinger. You, my good buddy, are a fourteen carat gold plated son of a bitch. That's what your problem is. And that being your problem, there's not a whole lot of people in sympathy with you. Or with your problem.

Cormac McCarthy
I aint got all that many regrets. I could imagine lots of things that you might think would make a man happier. 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
Yes mam. I'm sorry you've had such troubles.
Mm-hmm. Sorry. Don't need sorry. Not in this house. Sorry laid the hearth here. Sorry ways and sorry people and heavensent grief and heartache to make you pine for your death.

Cormac McCarthy
The stories gets passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the saying goes. Which I reckon some would take as meaning that the truth can't compete. But I don't believe that. I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It don't move about from place to place and it don't change from time to time. You can't corrupt it any more than you can salt salt. You can't corrupt it because that's what it is. It's the thing you're talking about. I've heard it compared to the rock — maybe in the bible—and I wouldn't disagree with that. But it'll be here even when the rock is gone. I'm sure they's people would disagree with that. Quite a few, in fact. But I never could find out what any of them did believe.

Cormac McCarthy
Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it?

Cormac McCarthy
White: I long for Darkness. I pray for death, real death. And if I thought that in death I would meet the people I knew in life, I don't know what I would do. That would be the ultimate horror, the ultimate nightmare. If I thought I was gonna meet my mother again an' start all of that over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to... that would be the final nightmare. Goddamn Kafka on wheels.

Cormac McCarthy