After the first establishment of identity there comes the imperative need to lose this new-found sense of separateness and to belong to something larger and more powerful than the weak, lonely self. The sense of moral isolation is intolerable to us.

— Carson McCullers

... and we are not alone in this slavery. There are millions of others throughout the world, of all colors and races and creeds. This we must remember. There are many of our people who hate the poor of the white race, and they hate us. The people in this town living by the river who work in the mills. People who are almost as much in need as we are ourselves. This hatred is a great evil, and no good can ever come from it... the injustice of need must bring us all together and not separate us. We must remember that we all make the things of this earth of value because of labor.

— Carson McCullers

A person can't pick up they children and just squeeze them to which-a-way they want them to be.

— Carson McCullers

Because in some men, it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons - throw it to some human being or some human idea.

— Carson McCullers

Because of the insolence of all the white race he was afraid to lose his dignity in friendliness.

— Carson McCullers

Blunt sat down to the table and leaned over close to Singer. "There are those who know and those who don't know. And for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who knows. That's the miracle of all time - the fact that these millions know so much but don't know this. It's like in the fifteenth century when everybody believed the world was flat and only Columbus and a few other fellows knew the truth. But it's different in that it took talent to figure that the earth is round. While the truth is so obvious it's a miracle of all history that people don't know.

— Carson McCullers

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.

— Carson McCullers

But you haven't loved God nor even near person. You hard and tough as cowhide. But just the same I know you. This afternoon you're going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You're going to traipse all around like you has to find something lost. You're going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don't love and don't have peace. And then some day you're going to bust loose and be ruined.

— Carson McCullers

By the moonlight he watched his wife for the last time. His hand sought the adjacent flesh and sorrow paralleled desire in the immense complexity of love.

— Carson McCullers

Doctor Copeland belt old evil anger in him. The words rose inchoate to his throat and he could not speak them. They would listen to the old man. Yet to word the reason they will not attend.

— Carson McCullers