Cities of the Plain Quotes

“When the Papayuna is pining you need to call home.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“De todos modos el compartir es la ley del camino, verdad?”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“It just sounds like superstition to me.
And what is that?
Superstition?
Yes.
Well. I guess it's when you believe in things that dont exist.
Such as tomorrow? Or yesterday?
Such as the dreams of somebody you dreamt. Yesterday was here and tomorrow's comin.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“The Sabbath had passed and in the gray Monday dawn a procession of schoolchildren dressed in blue uniforms all alike were being led along the gritty walkway. The woman had stepped from the curb to take them across at the intersection when she saw the man coming up the street all dark with blood bearing in his arms the dead body of a friend. She held up her hand and the children stopped and huddled with their books at their breasts. He passed. They could not take their eyes from him. The dead boy in his arms hung with his head back and those partly opened eyes beheld nothing at all out of that passing landscape of street or wall or paling sky or the figures of the children who stood blessing themselves in the gray light. This man and his burden passed on forever out of that nameless crossroads and the woman stepped once more into the street and the children followed and all continued on to their appointed places which as some believe were chosen long ago even to the beginning of the world.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“The drought didnt know when the last one was and nobody knew when the next one was coming.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“But have you not met people in your dreams you never saw before? In dreams or out?
Sure.
And who were they?
I dont know. Dream people.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Put that in your pocket and dont tell nobody where you got it. I dont believe I can do that. Go on. No sir. The man’s face darkened. He stood holding out the bill. Then he stuck it in the pocket of his shirt. It wouldnt be no skin off your ass. John Grady didnt answer. The man turned and spat again.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“know it. There’s hard lessons in this world. What’s the hardest? I dont know. Maybe it’s just that when things are gone they’re gone. They aint comin back.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“I’ve heard of some that was supposed to be better and I’m sure there were some better. I just never did see any of em.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Let’s go. You can sleep in the winter.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Daybreak to backbreak for a godgiven dollar, said Billy. I love this life. You love this life, son? I love this life. You do love this life dont you? Cause by god I love it. Just love it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“If I think about what I wanted as a kid and what I want now they aint the same thing. I guess what I wanted wasnt what I wanted.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Traiga un vino para mi amigo.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“You didnt slack up on him just the littlest bit? No. I dont believe in it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“There’s some things you dont decide. Decidin had nothin to do with it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“There’s hard lessons in this world. What’s the hardest? I dont know. Maybe it’s just that when things are gone they’re gone. They aint comin back.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“There’s a lot of things look better at a distance”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“every act which has no heart will be found out in the end. Every gesture.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his own doing.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Well. Nothin’s forever. Some things are. Yeah. Some things are.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Where do we go when we die? he said. I dont know, the man said. Where are we now?”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“If you sincerely want to hear all about what is wrong with you and what you ought to do to rectify it all you need to do is let them inlaws on the place. You’ll get a complete rundown on the subject and I guarantee it. She”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“He come by in the night and set a cat on fire and thowed it onto the herd. I mean slung it. Walter Devereaux was comin in off the middle watch and he heard it and looked back. Said it looked like a comet goin out through there and just a squallin. Lord didnt they come up from there. It took us three days to shape that herd back and whenever we left out of there we was still missin forty some odd head lost or crippled or stole and two horses. What happened to the boy? The boy? That threw the cat. Oh. Best I remember he didnt make out too well.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“offered him her throat. In his rage he seized her up by the arm but the arm broke in his hand. A muted snap, like a dry stick. She gasped and cried out with the pain. Mira, he shouted. Mira, puta, que has hecho.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Nadie puede sobornar a la muerte, Billy Said.
De veras. Nadie.
Nor God.
Nor God.
Billy watched the light bring up the shapes of the water standing in the fields beyond the roadway. Where do we go when we die? he said.
I don't know, the man said. Where are we now?”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“The narrator smiled wistfully, like a man remembering his childhood. These dreams reveal the world also, he said. We wake remembering the events of which they are composed while often the narrative is fugitive and difficult to recall. Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung. It falls to us to weigh and sort and order these events. It is we who assemble them into the story which is us. Each man is the bard of his own existence. This is how he is joined to the world. For escaping from the world’s dream of him this is at once his penalty and his reward.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“...for a thing once set in motion has no ending in this world until the last witness has passed”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Men have in their minds a picture of how the world will be. How they will be in that world. The world may be many dierent ways for them but there is one world that will never be and that is the world they dream of.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in that maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain