Books Quotes by Cormac McCarthy

“The ugly fact is books are made out of books, the novel depends for its life on the novels that have been…

— Cormac McCarthy

“From all old seamy throats of elders, musty books, I've salvaged not a word.”

— Cormac McCarthy

The core of literature is the idea of tragedy... You don't really learn much from the good things that happen to you.

— Cormac McCarthy

By the time I was sixteen I had read many books and I had become a freethinker.

— Cormac McCarthy

“He tried to read her heart in her handclasp but he knew nothing.”

— Cormac McCarthy

“There is no book and your fathers are dead in the ground.”

— Cormac McCarthy

“Whether in my book or not, every man is tabernacled in every other and he in exchange and so on in an…

— Cormac McCarthy

Do you think that your fathers are watching? That they weigh you in their ledgerbook? Against what? There is no book and…

— Cormac McCarthy

Usually, you don't know where a book comes from ... it's just there, some kind of an itch that you can't quite scratch.

— Cormac McCarthy

He said that whether a man's life was writ in a book someplace or whether it took its form day by day…

— Cormac McCarthy

“Do I think you’re crazy? he said. No. I dont. You’ve rewrote the book for crazy. If all you are is crazy…

— Cormac McCarthy

“Books lie, he said. God dont lie. No, said the judge. He does not. And these are his words. He held up…

— Cormac McCarthy

“The Good Book says that the meek shall inherit the earth and I expect that's probably the truth. I aint no freethinker,…

— Cormac McCarthy

Years later he'd stood in the charred ruins of a library where blackened books lay in pools of water. Shelves tipped over.…

— Cormac McCarthy

People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better, and people will read any damn thing.…

— Cormac McCarthy

I don't know what of our culture is going to survive, or if we survive. If you look at the Greek plays,…

— Cormac McCarthy