Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer-winning novelist of a dark and haunting America, has died at the age of 89 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A spare and often macabre writer, McCarthy’s many novels took a dour view of the human condition and often lushly evoked the sparseness of Appalachia and the American south-west, from brutally violent west Texas in No Country for Old Men, to the forbidding Mexican border in All the Pretty Horses, to postapocalyptic ruin in The Road. He was prolific but reclusive, only granting a few interviews during his lifetime.
Here are some of his most memorable quotes:
On violence:
There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea.
– to the New York Times Magazine, 1992.
War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.
– Blood Meridian, 1985.
On existence:
He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.
– The Road, 2006.
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.
– Blood Meridian, 1985.
On life:
You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don’t count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.
– The Road, 2006.
Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.
– All the Pretty Horses, 1992.
On death:
He slept and when he woke he’d dreamt of the dead standing about in their bones and the dark sockets of their eyes that were indeed without speculation bottomed in the void wherein lay a terrible intelligence common to all but of which none would speak.
– All the Pretty Horses, 1992.
Most people don’t ever see anyone die. It used to be if you grew up in a family you saw everybody die. They died in their bed at home with everyone gathered around. Death is the major issue in the world. For you, for me, for all of us. It just is. To not be able to talk about it is very odd.
– to Vanity Fair, 2005.
On spending his time:
In recent years, I have had no desire to do anything but work and be with [my son] John. I hear people talking about going on a vacation or something and I think, what is that about? I have no desire to go on a trip. My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That’s heaven. That’s gold and anything else is just a waste of time.
– to the Wall Street Journal, 2009.
On morality:
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.
– to the the Wall Street Journal, 2009.
There’s not much you can do to try to make a child into something that he’s not. But whatever he is, you can sure destroy it. Just be mean and cruel and you can destroy the best person.
– to the Wall Street Journal, 2009.
If you break little promises, you’ll break big ones.
– The Road, 2006.
On the future:
If you think about some of the things that are being talked about by thoughtful, intelligent scientists, you realize that in 100 years the human race won’t even be recognizable.
– to the Wall Street Journal, 2009.
On writing:
Writing is very subconscious and the last thing I want to do is think about it.
– interview granted to two Arizona high school students via email, 2014.
I’m not writing for a particular audience. The reader in mind is me. If someone else would write these books I could go play golf.
Someone asked Flannery O’Connor why she wrote, and she said, ‘Because I was good at it.’ And I think that’s the right answer. If you’re good at something it’s very hard not to do it.
– to the Wall Street Journal, 2009.
On talking about his writing:
Of all the subjects I’m interested in, it would be extremely difficult to find one I wasn’t. Writing is way, way down at the bottom of the list.
– to the New York Times Magazine, 1992.
