And after and for a long time to come he'd have reason to evoke the recollection of [the strangers'] smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve, and it had the power to heal men and to bring them to safety long after all other resources were exhausted.

— Cormac McCarthy

And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly.

— Cormac McCarthy

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

Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

— Cormac McCarthy

Arrogate saw them going along Blunt Avenue Sunday morning. They wore outfits all cut from the same bolt of cloth and in the church pew standing six across they looked like a strip of gaudy wallpaper cut into those linked dolls mad folk pass their time in fashioning.

— Cormac McCarthy

At one time in the world there were woods that no one owned

— Cormac McCarthy

Best way to live in California is to be from somewhere's else.

— Cormac McCarthy

Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.

— Cormac McCarthy

But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry (of life) will buy the decision alone have taken charge of the world, and it is only by such taking charge of the world that he will affect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.

— Cormac McCarthy

But what is your life? Can you see it? It vanishes at its own appearance. Moment by moment. Until it vanishes to appear no more. When you look at the world is there a point in time when the seen becomes the remembered? How are they separate? It is that which we have no way o show. It is that which is missing from our map and from the picture that it makes. And yet is all we have.

— Cormac McCarthy