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He Looked At A World Of Incredible Loveliness. Old Distaff Celt's Blood In Some Back Chamber Of His Brain Moved Him To Discourse With The Birches, With The Oaks. A Cool Green Fire Kept Breaking In The Woods And He Could Hear The Footsteps Of The Dead. Everything Had Fallen From Him. He Scarce Could Tell Where His Being Ended Or The World Began Nor Did He Care. He Lay On His Back In The Gravel, The Earth's Core Sucking His Bones, A Moment's Giddy Vertigo With This Illusion Of Falling Outward Through Blue And Windy Space, Over The Offside Of The Planet, Hurtling Through The High Thin Cirrus.

-Cormac McCarthy

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He Looked At A

Cormac McCarthy

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He Looked At A World Of Incredible Loveliness. Old Distaff Celt's Blood In Some Back Chamber Of His Brain Moved Him To Discourse With The Birches, With The Oaks. A Cool Green Fire Kept Breaking In The Woods And He Could Hear The Footsteps Of The Dead. Everything Had Fallen From Him. He Scarce Could Tell Where His Being Ended Or The World Began Nor Did He Care. He Lay On His Back In The Gravel, The Earth's Core Sucking His Bones, A Moment's Giddy Vertigo With This Illusion Of Falling Outward Through Blue And Windy Space, Over The Offside Of The Planet, Hurtling Through The High Thin Cirrus.

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It May Be That The Life I Desire For Her No Longer Even Exists, Yet I Know What She Does Not. That There Is Nothing To Lose.

You Either Stick Or You Quit. And I Wouldnt Quit You I Dont Care What You Done.

There Is No Forgiveness. For Women. A Man May Lose His Honor And Regain It Again. But A Woman Cannot. She Cannot.

Things Happen To You They Happen. They Dont Ask First. They Dont Require Your Permission.

This Place Aint The Same. It Never Will Be. Maybe We've All Got A Little Crazy. I Guess If Everbody Went Crazy Together Nobody Would Notice, What Do You Think?

There's A Difference Between Quittin And Knowin When You're Beat.

I Always Thought When I Got Older That God Would Sort Of Come Into My Life In Some Way. He Didn't. I Don't Blame Him. If I Was Him I'd Have The Same Opinion About Me That He Does.

When One Has Nothing Left Make Ceremonies Out Of The Air And Breathe Upon Them.

Creedless Shells Of Men Tottering Down The Causeways Like Migrants In A Feverland.

In The Neuter Austerity Of That Terrain All Phenomena Were Bequeathed A Strange Equality And No One Thing Nor Spider Nor Stone Nor Blade Of Grass Could Put Forth Claim To Precedence. The Very Clarity Of These Articles Belied Their Familiarity, For The Eye Predicates The Whole On Some Feature Or Part And Here Was Nothing More Luminous Than Another And Nothing More Enshadowed And In The Optical Democracy Of Such Landscapes All Preference Is Made Whimsical And A Man And A Rock Become Endowed With Unguessed Kinship.

People Apparently Only Read Mystery Stories Of Any Length. With Mysteries, The Longer The Better, And People Will Read Any Damn Thing. But The Indulgent, 800-page Books That Were Written A Hundred Years Ago Are Just Not Going To Be Written Anymore, And People Need To Get Used To That.

People Were Always Getting Ready For Tomorrow. I Didn't Believe In That. Tomorrow Wasn't Getting Ready For Them. It Didn't Even Know They Were There.

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.

You Fix What You Can Fix And You Let The Rest Go. If There Ain't Nothin To Be Done About It It Aint Even A Problem. It's Just A Aggravation.

Notions Of Chance And Fate Are The Preoccupations Of Men Engaged In Rash Undertakings.

What He Could Bear In The Waking World He Could Not By Night And He Sat Awake For Fear The Dream Would Return.

War Was Always Here. Before Man Was, War Waited For Him. The Ultimate Trade Awaiting Its Ultimate Practitioner.

War Is The Ultimate Game Because War Is At Last A Forcing Of The Unity Of Existence. War Is God.

He Spoke Of His Campaigns In The Deserts Of Mexico And He Told Them Of Horses Killed Under Him And He Said That The Souls Of Horses Mirror The Souls Of Men More Closely Than Men Suppose And That Horses Also Love War. Men Say They Only Learn This But He Said That No Creature Can Learn That Which His Heart Has No Shape To Holo

The Societies To Which I Have Been Exposed Seemed To Me Largely Machines For The Suppression Of Women.

There Was Someone There And They Had Been There. There Was No One There. There Was Someone There And They Had Been There And They Had Not Left But There Was No One There.

The World Was New Each Day For God So Made It Daily. Yet It Contained Within It All The Evils As Before, No More, No Less.

But There Are No Absolutes In Human Misery And Things Can Always Get Worse

Do You Think That Your Fathers Are Watching? That They Weigh You In Their Ledgerbook? Against What? There Is No Book And Your Fathers Are Dead In The Ground.

He Poured The Tumbler Full. Drink Up, He Said. The World Goes On. We Have Dancing Nightly And This Night Is No Exception. The Straight And The Winding Way Are One And Now That You Are Here What Do The Years Count Since Last We Two Met Together? Men's Memories Are Uncertain And The Past That Was Differs Little From The Past That Was Not.

Life Is A Memory, And Then It Is Nothing.

Books Lie, He Said. God Dont Lie. No, Said The Judge. He Does Not. And These Are His Words. He Held Up A Chunk Of Rock. He Speaks In Stones And Trees, The Bones Of Things. The Squatters In Their Rags Nodded Among Themselves And Were Soon Reckoning Him Correct, This Man Of Learning, In All His Speculations, And This The Judge Encouraged Until They Were Right Proselytes Of The New Order Whereupon He Laughed At Them For Fools.

You Keep Runnin That Mouth And I'm Goin To Take You Back There And Screw You.

Even If What You're Working On Doesn't Go Anywhere, It Will Help You With The Next Thing You're Doing. Make Yourself Available For Something To Happen. Give It A Shot.

The Soft Black Talc Blew Through The Streets Like Squid Ink Uncoiling Along A Sea Floor And The Cold Crept Down And The Dark Came Early And The Scavengers Passing Down The Steep Canyons With Their Torches Trod Silky Holes In The Drifted Ash That Closed Behind Them Silently As Eyes.

This Country Was Filled With Violent Children Orphaned By War.

Ever Is A Long Time. But The Boy Knew What He Knew. That Ever Is No Time At All.

Men Speak Of Blind Destiny, A Thing Without Scheme Or Purpose. But What Sort Of Destiny Is That? Each Act In This World From Which There Can Be No Turning Back Has Before It Another, And It Another Yet. In A Vast Endless Net. 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 The Maze Is Itself An Enslavement For It Voids Every Alternative And Binds One Ever More Tightly Into The Constraints That Make A Life.

To Have A Child When You're Older, It Wrenches You Up Out Of Your Nap And Makes You Look At Things, You Know, Afresh. It Forces The World On You. And I Think It's A Good Thing.

They Came Upon Themselves In A Mirror And He Almost Raised The Pistol. It's Us, Papa, The Boy Whispered. It's Us.

Life Is Brief And To Have To Spend Every Day Of It Doing What Somebody Else Wants You To Do Is Not The Way To Live It.

One Of The Things You Realize About Gettin Older Is That Not Everybody Is Goin To Get Older With You.

If The Rule You Followed Brought You To This, Of What Use Was The Rule?

He Lay Listening To The Water Drip In The Woods. Bedrock, This. The Cold And The Silence. The Ashes Of The Late World Carried On The Bleak And Temporal Winds To And Fro In The Void. Carried Forth And Scattered And Carried Forth Again. Everything Uncoupled From Its Shoring. Unsupported In The Ashen Air. Sustained By A Breath, Trembling And Brief. If Only My Heart Were Stone.

The Night Is Quiet. Like A Camp Before Battle. The City Beset By A Thing Unknown And Will It Come From Forest Or Sea? The Murengers Have Walled The Pale, The Gates Are Shut, But Lo The Thing's Inside And Can You Guess His Shape? Where He's Kept Or What's The Counter Of His Face? Is He A Weaver, Bloody Shuttle Shot Through A Time Warp, A Carder Of Souls From The World's Nap? Or A Hunter With Hounds Or Do Bone Horses Draw His Dead Cart Through The Streets And Does He Call His Trade To Each? Dear Friend He Is Not To Be Dwelt Upon For It Is By Just Such Wise That He's Invited In

The Nights Were Blinding Cold And Casket Black And The Long Reach Of The Morning Had A Terrible Silence To It.

You Never Know What Worse Luck Your Bad Luck Has Saved You From.

Fortune And Luck

When We're All Gone At Last Then There'll Be Nobody Here But Death And His Days Will Be Numbered Too. He'll Be Out In The Road There With Nothing To Do And Nobody To Do It To. He'll Say: Where Did Everybody Go? And That's How It Will Be. What's Wrong With That?

Ever Dumb Thing I Ever Done In My Life There Was A Decision I Made Before That Got Me Into It. It Was Never The Dumb Thing. It Was Always Some Choice I'd Made Before It.

Men Believe Death's Elections To Be A Thing Inscrutable Yet Every Act Invites The Act Which Follows And To The Extent That Men Put One Foot Before The Other They Are Accomplices In Their Own Deaths As In All Such Facts Of Destiny.

There Is For A Man Two Things In Life That Are Very Important, Head And Shoulders Above Everything Else. Find Work You Like, And Find Someone To Live With You Like. Very Few People Get Both.

It Makes No Difference What Men Think Of War, Said The Judge. War Endures. As Well Ask Men What They Think Of Stone. War Was Always Here. Before Man Was, War Waited For Him. The Ultimate Trade Awaiting Its Ultimate Practitioner. That Is The Way It Was And Will Be. That Way And Not Some Other Way.

He Thought Each Memory Recalled Must Do Some Violence To Its Origins. As In A Party Game. Say The Words And Pass It On. So Be Sparing. What You Alter In The Remembering Has Yet A Reality, Known Or Not.

The World Shrinking Down About A Raw Core Of Parsible Entities. The Names Of Things Slowly Following Those Things Into Oblivion. Colors. The Names Of Birds. Things To Eat. Finally The Name Of Things One Believed To Be True. More Fragile Than He Would Have Thought. How Much Was Gone Already? The Sacred Idiom Shorn Of Its Referents And So Of Its Reality. Drawing Down Like Something Trying To Preserve Heat. In Time To Wink Out Forever.

In Dreams It Is Often The Case That The Greatest Extravagances Seem Bereft Of Their Power To Astonish And The Most Improbable Chimeras Seem Commonplace.

Looking Over The Country With Those Sunken Eyes As If The World Out There Had Been Altered Or Made Suspect By What He'd Seen Of It Elsewhere. As If He Might Never See It Right Again. Or Worse Did See It Right At Last. See It As It Had Always Been, Would Forever Be.

Men's Memories Are Uncertain And The Past That Was Differs Little From The Past That Was Not.

There Is No Such Joy In The Tavern As Upon The Road Thereto.

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 Doing.

I Got What I Needed Instead Of What I Wanted And That's Just About The Best Kind Of Luck You Can Have.

The Night Sky Lies So Sprent With Stars That There Is Scarcely Space Of Black At All And They Fall All Night In Bitter Arcs And It Is So That Their Numbers Are No Less.

If One Were To Be A Person Of Value That Value Could Not Be A Condition Subject To Hazards Of Fortune. It Had To Be A Quality That Could Not Change. No Matter What.

The Flames Sawed In The Wind And The Embers Paled And Deepened And Paled And Deepened Like The Bloodbeat Of Some Living Thing Eviscerate Upon The Ground Before Them And They Watched The Fire Which Does Contain Within It Something Of Men Themselves Inasmuch As They Are Less Without It And Are Divided From Their Origins And Are Exiles. For Each Fire Is All Fires, And The First Fire And The Last Ever To Be.

What Would You Do If I Died? If You Died I Would Want To Die Too. So You Could Be With Me? Yes. So I Could Be With You. Okay.

Where Hunters And Woodcutters Once Slept In Their Boots By The Dying Light Of Their Thousand Fires And Went On, Old Teutonic Forebears With Eyes Incandesced By The Visionary Light Of A Massive Rapacity, Wave On Wave Of The Violent And The Insane, Their Brains Stoked With Spoorless Analogues Of All That Was, Lean Aryans With Their Abrogate Semitic Chapbook Reenacting The Dramas And Parable Therein.

When The Shooting Starts Would You Rather Be Armed Or Legal?

When He Went Back To The Fire He Knelt And Smoothed Her Hair As She Slept And He Said If He Were God He Would Have Made The World Just So And No Different.

My Daddy Always Told Me To Just Do The Best You Knew How And Tell The Truth. He Said There Was Nothin To Set A Man’s Mind At Ease Like Wakin Up In The Morning And Not Havin To Decide Who You Were. And If You Done Somethin Wrong Just Stand Up And Say You Done It And Say You’re Sorry And Get On With It. Don’t Haul Stuff Around With You.

Men Say They Only Learn This But He Said That No Creature Can Learn That Which His Heart Has No Shape To Hold.

If People Knew The Story Of Their Lives, How Many Would Then Elect To Live Them?

I Tried To Put Things In Perspective But Sometimes You're Just Too Close To It.

He Lay On His Back In His Blankets And Looked Our Where The Quartermoon Lay Cocked Over The Heel Of The Mountains. In The False Blue Dawn The Pleiades Seemed To Be Rising Up Into The Darkness Above The World And Dragging All The Stars Away, The Great Diamond Of Orion And Cepella And The Signature Of Cassiopeia All Rising Up Through The Phosphorous Dark Like A Sea-net. He Lay A Long Time Listening To The Others Breathing In Their Sleep While He Contemplated The Wildness About Him, The Wildness Within.

From Daydreams On The Road There Was No Waking. He Plodded On. He Could Remember Everything Of Her Save Her Scent. Seated In A Theatre With Her Beside Him Leaning Forward Listening To The Music. Gold Scrollwork And Sconces And The Tall Columnar Folds Of The Drapes At Either Side Of The Stage. She Held His Hand In Her Lap And He Could Feel The Tops Of Her Stockings Through The Thin Stuff Of Her Summer Dress. Freeze This Frame. Now Call Down Your Dark And Your Cold And Be Damned.

Remembers Everything

He'd Half Meant To Speak But Those Eyes Had Altered The World Forever In The Space Of A Heartbeat.

I Think By The Time You're Grown You're As Happy As You're Goin To Be. You'll Have Good Times And Bad Times, But In The End You'll Be About As Happy As You Was Before. Or As Unhappy. I've Knowed People That Just Never Did Get The Hang Of It.

There Is A Moon Shaped Rictus In The Streetlamp's Globe Where A Stone Has Gone And From This Aperture There Drifts Down Through The Constant Helix Of Aspiring Insects A Faint And Steady Rain Of The Same Forms Burnt And Lifeless.

Keep A Little Fire Burning; However Small, However Hidden.

It Would Take A Hell Of A Wife To Beat No Wife At All.

The Truth May Often Be Carried About By Those Who Themselves Remain All Unaware Of It. They Bear That Which Has Weight And Substance And Yet For Them Has No Name Whereby It May Be Evoked Or Called Forth. They Go About Ignorant Of The True Nature Of Their Condition, Such Are The Wiles Of Truth And Such Its Stratagems.

Just Take Me With You. Please. I Cant. Please, Papa. I Cant. I Cant Hold My Son Dead In My Arms. I Thought I Could But I Cant.

In Dreams We Stand In This Great Democracy Of The Possible And There We Are Right Pilgrims Indeed. There We Go Forth To Meet What We Shall Meet.

They Spoke Less And Less Between Them Until At Last They Were Silent Altogether As Is Often The Way With Travelers Approaching The End Of A Journey.

Rage Is Really Only For The Good Days. The Truth Is There's Little Of That Left. The Truth Is That The Forms I See Have Been Slowly Emptied Out. They No Longer Have Any Content. They Are Shapes Only. A Train, A Wall, A World. Or A Man. A Thing Dangling In Senseless Articulation In A Howling Void. No Meaning To Its Life. Its Words. Why Would I Seek The Company Of Such A Thing? Why?

When You Die It's The Same As If Everybody Else Did Too.

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.

Borrowed Time And Borrowed World And Borrowed Eyes With Which To Sorrow It.

The Man Who Believes That The Secrets Of The World Are Forever Hidden Lives In Mystery And Fear. Superstition Will Drag Him Down. The Rain Will Erode The Deeds Of His Life. But That Man Who Sets Himself The Task Of Singling Out The Thread Of Order From The Tapestry Will By The Decision Alone Have Taken Charge Of The World And It Is Only By Such Taking Charge That He Will Effect A Way To Dictate The Terms Of His Own Fate.

This Country Will Kill You In A Heartbeat And Still People Love It.

What Deity In The Realms Of Dementia, What Rabid God Decocted Out Of The Smoking Lobes Of Hydrophobia Could Have Devised A Keeping Place For Souls So Poor As Is This Flesh. This Mawky Worm-bent Tabernacle.

Each The Others World Entire.

A Dream Inside A Dream Might Not Be A Dream.

Peering Down Into The Water Where The Morning Sun Fashioned Wheels Of Light, Coronets Fanwise In Which Lay Trapped Each Twig, Each Grain Of Sediment, Long Flakes And Blades Of Light In The Dusty Water Sliding Away Like Optic Strobes Where Motes Sifted And Spun.

Query: How Does The Never To Be Differ From What Never Was?

What Could A Child Know Of The Darkness Of God's Plan? Or How Flesh Is So Frail It Is Hardly More Than A Dream

They Say Death Comes Like A Thief In The Night, Where Is He? I'll Hug His Neck.

See The Child. He Is Pale And Thin, He Wears A Thin And Ragged Linen Shirt. He Stokes The Scullery Fire.

I Ain't Got An Original Thought In My Head. If It Ain't Got The Scent Of Divinity To It, I Ain't Interested In It

Original Thought

Where Men Can't Live Gods Fare No Better.

We're Carrying The Fire.

The Man Smiled At Him A Sly Smile. As If They Knew A Secret Between Them, These Two. Something Of Age And Youth And Their Claims And The Justice Of Those Claims. And Of Their Claims Upon Them. The World Past, The World To Come. Their Common Transciencies. Above All A Knowing Deep In The Bone That Beauty And Loss Are One.

Deep In Each Man Is The Knowledge That Something Knows Of His Existence. Something Knows, And Cannot Be Fled Nor Hid From.

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.

Fear Of An Enemy Can Often Blind Men To Other Hazards, Not Least The Shape Which They Themselves Make In The World.

Every Day Is A Lie. But You Are Dying. That Is Not A Lie.

There Is No Later. This Is Later.

The Point Is There Ain't No Point.

When God Made Man The Devil Was At His Elbow. A Creature That Can Do Anything. Make A Machine. And A Machine To Make The Machine. And Evil That Can Run Itself A Thousand Years, No Need To Tend It.

You Can Tell It Any Way You Want But That's The Way It Is. I Should Of Done It And I Didnt. And Some Part Of Me Has Never Quit Wishin I Could Go Back. And I Cant. I Didn't Know You Could Steal Your Own Life. And I Didnt Know That It Would Bring You No More Benefit Than About Anything Else You Might Steal. I Thinki Done The Best With Iti Knew How But Itstill Wasntmine. It Neverhas Been.

Well, I Guess In All Honesty I Would Have To Say That I Never Knew Nor Did I Ever Hear Of Anybody That Money Didnt Change.

What He Loved In Horses Was What He Loved In Men, The Blood And The Heat Of The Blood That Ran Them. All His Reverence And All His Fondness And All The Leanings Of His Life Were For The Ardenhearted And They Would Always Be So And Never Be Otherwise. (all The Pretty Horses)

He Was Just Hungry, Papa. He's Going To Die. He's Going To Die Anyway. He's So Scared, Papa. The Man Squatted And Looked At Him. I'm Scared, He Said. Do You Understand? I'm Scared. The Boy Didn't Answer. He Just Sat There With His Head Down, Sobbing. You're Not The One Who Has To Worry About Everything. The Boy Said Something But He Couldn't Understand Him. What? He Said. He Looked Up, His Wet And Grimy Face. Yes I Am, He Said. I Am The One.

Only That Man Who Has Offered Up Himself Entire To The Blood Of War, Who Has Been To The Floor Of The Pit And Seen The Horror In The Round And Learned At Last That It Speaks To His Inmost Heart, Only That Man Can Dance. - The Judge

She Said That These Were Things All Women Knew Yet Seldom Spoke Of. Lastly She Said That If Women Were Drawn To Rash Men It Was Only That In Their Secret Hearts They Knew That A Man Who Would Not Kill For Them Was Of No Use At All.

Word Gets Around When The Circus Comes To Town, Don't It?

All Human Love Is A Faint Type Of God's; An Echoing Note From A Harmonious Whole; A Feeble Spark From An Undying Flame; A Single Drop From An Unfathomed Sea: But God's Is Infinite; It Fills The Earth And Heaven, And The Broad, Trackless Realms Of Space.

And For A Moment He Held Out His Hands As If To Steady Himself Or As If To Bless The Ground There Or Perhaps As If To Slow The World That Was Rushing Away And Seemed To Care Nothing For The Old Or The Young Or Rich Or Poor Or Dark Or Pale Or He Or She. Nothing For Their Struggles, Nothing For Their Names. Nothing For The Living Or The Dead.

Your Heart's Desire Is To Be Told Some Mystery. The Mystery Is That There Is No Mystery.

He Said That Men Believe The Blood Of The Slain To Be Of No Consequence But That The Wolf Knows Better. He Said That The Wolf Is A Being Of Great Order And That It Knows What Men Do Not: That There Is No Order In This World Save That Which Death Has Put There.

If You Dont Respect Me What Must You Think Of Yourself?

Ever Step You Take Is Forever.

It Starts When You Begin To Overlook Good Manners. Any Time You Quit Hearing Sir And Mam The End Is Pretty Much In Sight.

He Looked At A World Of Incredible Loveliness. Old Distaff Celt's Blood In Some Back Chamber Of His Brain Moved Him To Discourse With The Birches, With The Oaks. A Cool Green Fire Kept Breaking In The Woods And He Could Hear The Footsteps Of The Dead. Everything Had Fallen From Him. He Scarce Could Tell Where His Being Ended Or The World Began Nor Did He Care. He Lay On His Back In The Gravel, The Earth's Core Sucking His Bones, A Moment's Giddy Vertigo With This Illusion Of Falling Outward Through Blue And Windy Space, Over The Offside Of The Planet, Hurtling Through The High Thin Cirrus.

It Takes Very Little To Govern Good People. Very Little. And Bad People Cant Be Governed At All. Or If They Could I Never Heard Of It.

It's Not About Knowing Who You Are. It's About Thinkin You Got There Without Takin Anything With You. Your Notions About Startin Over. Or Anybody's. You Dont Start Over. That's What It's About. Every Step You Take Is Forever. You Can't Make It Go Away. None Of It.

Knowing Who You Are

When I Came Into Your Life Your Life Was Over. It Had A Beginning, A Middle, And An End. This Is The End. You Can Say That Things Could Have Turned Out Differently. That They Could Have Been Some Other Way. But What Does That Mean? They Are Not Some Other Way. They Are This Way.

Just Remember That The Things You Put Into Your Head Are There Forever, He Said. You Might Want To Think About That. You Forget Some Things, Dont You? Yes. You Forget What You Want To Remember And You Remember What You Want To Forget.

To See God Everywhere Is To See Him Nowhere.

Years Later He'd Stood In The Charred Ruins Of A Library Where Blackened Books Lay In Pools Of Water. Shelves Tipped Over. Some Rage At The Lies Arranged In Their Thousands Row On Row. He Picked Up One Of The Books And Thumbed Through The Heavy Bloated Pages. He'd Not Have Thought The Value Of The Smallest Thing Predicated On A World To Come. It Surprised Him. That The Space Which These Things Occupied Was Itself An Expectation.

People Think They Know What They Want But They Generally Don't. Sometimes If They're Lucky They'll Get It Anyways.

Only Now Is The Child Finally Divested Of All That He Has Been. His Origins Are Become Remote As Is His Destiny And Not Again In All The World's Turning Will There Be Terrains So Wild And Barbarous To Try Whether The Stuff Of Creation May Be Shaped To Man's Will Or Whether His Own Heart Is Not Another Kind Of Clay.

I Remember In Grammar School The Teacher Asked If Anyone Had Any Hobbies. I Was The Only One With Any Hobbies And I Had Every Hobby There Was... Name Anything, No Matter How Esoteric. I Could Have Given Everyone A Hobby And Still Had 40 Or 50 To Take Home.

Where In This Pukehole Can A Man Get A Drink? He Said

He Didn't Say A Lot So I Tend To Remember What He Did Say. And I Don't Remember That He Had A Lot Of Patience With Havin To Say Things Twice So I Learned To Listen The First Time.

What Is It? Nothing. I Had A Bad Dream. What Did You Dream About? Nothing. Are You Okay? No. He Put His Arms Around Him And Held Him. It's Okay, He Said. I Was Crying. But You Didnt Wake Up. I'm Sorry. I Was Just So Tired. I Meant In The Dream.

For Even If You Should Have Stood Your Ground, He Said, Yet What Ground Was It?

How Does A Man Decide In What Order To Abandon His Life?

You Go Back Home And Everything You Wished Was Different Is Still The Same And Everything You Wished Was The Same Is Different.

I Felt Early On I Wasn't Going To Be A Respectable Citizen.

He Never Sleeps, The Judge. He Is Dancing, Dancing. He Says That He Will Never Die.

The World Is Quite Ruthless In Selecting Between The Dream And The Reality, Even Where We Will Not.

This Is The Nature Of War, Whose Stake Is At Once The Game And The Authority And The Justification. Seen So, War Is The Truest Form Of Divination. It Is The Testing Of One's Will And The Will Of Another Within That Larger Will Which Because It Binds Them Is Therefore Forced To Select. War Is The Ultimate Game Because War Is At Last A Forcing Of The Unity Of Existence.war Is God.

I Yearn For The Darkness. I Pray For Death. Real Death. If I Thought That In Death I Would Meet The People I've Known In Life I Don't Know What I'd Do. That Would Be The Ultimate Horror. The Ultimate Despair. If I Had To Meet My Mother Again And Start All Of That All Over, Only This Time Without The Prospect Of Death To Look Forward To? Well. That Would Be The Final Nightmare. Kafka On Wheels.

In Every Trade Save War Men Of Talent And Vigor Prosper. In War They Die.

If A Dream Can Tell The Future It Can Also Thwart That Future. For God Will Not Permit That We Shall Know What Is To Come. He Is Bound To No One That The World Unfold Just So Upon Its Course And Those Who By Some Sorcery Or By Some Dream Might Come To Pierce The Veil That Lies So Darkly Over All That Is Before Them May Serve By Just That Vision To Cause That God Should Wrench The World From Its Heading And Set It Upon Another Course Altogether And Then Where Stands The Sorcerer? Where The Dreamer And His Dream?

The Things I Believed In Dont Exist Any More. It's Foolish To Pretend That They Do. Western Civilization Finally Went Up In Smoke In The Chimneys At Dachau But I Was Too Infatuated To See It. I See It Now.

If You Could Breathe A Breath So Strong You Could Blow Out The Wolf. Like You Blow Out The Copo. Like You Blow Out The Fire From The Candela. The Wolf Is Made The Way The World Is Made. You Cannot Touch The World. You Cannot Hold It In Your Hand For It Is Made Of Breath Only.

What You Alter In The Remembering Has Yet A Reality, Known Or Not.

Do You Know What Happens With People Who Cannot Govern Themselves? That's Right. Others Come In To Govern For Them.

She Looked Up At Him And Her Face Was Pale And Austere In The Uplight And Her Eyes Lost In Their Darkly Shadowed Hollows Save Only For The Glint Of Them And He Could See Her Throat Move In The Light And He Saw In Her Face And In Her Figure Something He'd Not Seen Before And The Name Of That Thing Was Sorrow.

The Trouble With A Liar Is He Can't Remember What He Said.

This Is My Child, He Said. I Wash A Dead Man's Brains Out Of His Hair. That Is My Job.

Dying Ain't In People's Plans, Is It?

A Goodlookin Horse Is Like A Goodlookin Woman, He Said. They're Always More Trouble Than What They're Worth. What A Man Needs Is Just One That Will Get The Job Done.

Ever Step You Take Is Forever. You Cant Make It Go Away. None Of It. You Understand What I'm Sayin?

In The Spring Or Warmer Weather When The Snow Thaws In The Woods The Tracks Of Winter Reappear On Slender Pedestals And The Snow Reveals In Palimpsest Old Buried Wanderings, Struggles, Scenes Of Death. Tales Of Winter Brought To Light Again Like Time Turned Back Upon Itself.

I Don't Know What Sort Of World She Will Live In And I Have No Fixed Opinions Concerning How She Should Live In It. I Only Know That If She Does Not Come To Value What Is True Above What Is Useful, It Will Make Little Difference Whether She Lives At All.

The Man Watched Him. Real Life Is Pretty Bad? What Do You Think? Well, I Think We're Still Here. A Lot Of Bad Things Have Happened But We're Still Here. Yeah. You Don't Think That's So Great. It's Okay.

See The Hand That Nursed The Serpent. The Fine Hasped Pipes Of Her Fingerbones. The Skin Bewenned And Speckled. The Veins Are Milkblue And Bulby. A Thin Gold Ring Set With Diamonds. That Raised The Once Child's Heart Of Her To Agonies Of Passion Before I Was. Here Is The Anguish Of Mortality. Hopes Wrecked, Love Sundered. See The Mother Sorrowing. How Everything That I Was Warned Of's Come To Pass.

How Surely Are The Dead Beyond Death. Death Is What The Living Carry With Them. A State Of Dread, Like Some Uncanny Foretaste Of A Bitter Memory. But The Dead Do Not Remember And Nothingness Is Not A Curse. Far From It.

The Wind Sounded Of Mother Earth's Forsaken And Abandoned Cries.

And Perhaps Beyond Those Shrouded Swells Another Man Did Walk With Another Child On The Dead Gray Sands. Slept But A Sea Apart On Another Beach Among The Bitter Ashes Of The World Or Stood In Their Rags Lost To The Same Indifferent Sun.

I Got Here The Same Way The Coin Did.

He Had Divested Himself Of The Little Cloaked Godlet And His Other Amulets In A Place Where They Would Not Be Found In His Lifetime And He'd Taken For Talisman The Simple Human Heart Within Him.

It Had Ceased Raining In The Night And He Walked Out On The Road And Called For The Dog. He Called And Called. Standing In That Inexplicable Darkness. Where There Was No Sound Anywhere Save Only The Wind. After A While He Sat In The Road. He Took Off His Hat And Placed It On The Tarmac Before Him And He Bowed His Head And Held His Face In His Hands And Wept. He Sat There For A Long Time And After A While The East Did Gray And After A While The Right And Godmade Sun Did Rise, Once Again, For All And Without Distinction.

The Man Who Believes That The Secrets Of The World Are Forever Hidden Lives In Mystery And Fear. Superstition Will Drag Him Down." -the Judge

Teaching Writing Is A Hustle.

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.

The Closest Bonds We Will Ever Know Are Bonds Of Grief. The Deepest Community One Of Sorrow.

On This Road There Are No Godspoke Men. They Are Gone And I Am Left And They Have Taken With Them The World.

She Smiled. I Think It's Just The Snow. I Think It Makes People Stop And Think. Bell Nodded. I Hope It Comes A Blizzard Then.

If God Meant To Interfere In The Degeneracy Of Mankind Would He Not Have Done So By Now? Wolves Cull Themselves, Man. What Other Creatures Could? And Is The Race Of Man Not More Predacious Yet?

The One Thing I Can Tell You Is That You Wont Survive For Yourself. I Know Because I Would Never Have Come This Far. A Person Who Had No One Would Be Well Advised To Cobble Together Some Passable Ghost. Breathe It Into Being And Coax It Along With Words Of Love. Offer It Each Phantom Crumb And Shield It From Harm With Your Body. As For Me My Only Hope Is For Eternal Nothingness And I Hope It With All My Heart.

In The Spaniards Heart Is A Great Yearning For Freedom, But Only His Own. A Great Love For Truth And Honor In All Its Forms, But Not In Its Substance. And A Deep Conviction That Nothing Can Be Proven Except That It Be Made To Bleed. Virgins, Bulls, Men. Ultimately God Himself.

Somewhere In The World Is The Most Invincible Man. Just As Somewhere Is The Most Vulnerable.

For The Poor Any Choice Was A Gift With Two Faces.

I Guess You Ought To Be Careful About Cussin The Dead. I Would Say At The Least There Probably Ain't No Luck In It.

They Rode On And The Sun In The East Flushed Pale Streaks Of Light And Then A Deeper Run Of Color Like Blood Seeping Up In Sudden Reaches Flaring Planewise And Where The Earth Drained Up Into The Sky At The Edge Of Creation The Top Of The Sun Rose Out Of Nothing Like The Head Of A Great Red Phallus Until It Cleared The Unseen Rim And Sat Squat And Pulsing And Malevolent Behind Them.

What Man Is Such A Coward He Would Not Rather Fall Once Than Remain Forever Tottering?

Words Pale And Lose Their Savor While Pain Is Always New.

The Truth About The World, He Said, Is That Anything Is Possible. Had You Not Seen It All From Birth And Thereby Bled It Of Its Strangeness It Would Appear To You For What It Is, A Hat Trick In A Medicine Show, A Fevered Dream, A Trance Bepopulate With Chimeras Having Neither Analogue Nor Precedent, An Itinerant Carnival, A Migratory Tentshow Whose Ultimate Destination After Many A Pitch In A Many A Mudded Field Is Unspeakable And Calamitous Beyond Reckoning.

All Progressions From A Higher To A Lower Order Are Marked By Ruins And Mystery And A Residue Of Nameless Rage.

People Don't Pay Attention. And Then One Day There's An Accounting. And After That, Nothing Is The Same.

The Freedom Of Birds Is An Insult To Me.

Because The Question For Me Was Always Whether That Shape We See In Our Lives Was There From The Beginning Or Whether These Random Events Are Only Called A Pattern After The Fact. Because Otherwise We Are Nothing.

Whatever In Creation Exists Without My Knowledge Exists Without My Consent.

He Thought That In The Beauty Of The World Were Hid A Secret. He Thought That The World’s Heart Beat At Some Terrible Cost And That The World’s Pain And Its Beauty Moved In A Relationship Of Diverging Equity And That In This Headlong Deficit The Blood Of Multitudes Might Ultimately Be Exacted For The Vision Of A Single Flower.

Ive Seen The Meanness Of Humans Till I Dont Know Why God Aint Put Out The Sun And Gone Away.

Perhaps In The World's Destruction It Would Be Possible At Last To See How It Was Made. Oceans, Mountains. The Ponderous Counterspectacle Of Things Ceasing To Be. The Sweeping Waste, Hydroptic And Coldly Secular. The Silence.

The Rain Falls Upon The Just And Also On The Unjust Fellas But Mostly It Falls Upon The Just Cause The Unjust Have The Just's Umbrellas

It Is Not My Experience That Life’s Difficulties Make People More Charitable.

It Was The Nature Of His Profession That His Experience With Death Should Be Greater Than For Most And He Said That While It Was True That Time Heals Bereavement It Does So Only At The Cost Of The Slow Extinction Of Those Loved Ones From The Heart's Memory Which Is The Sole Place Of Their Abode Then Or Now. Faces Fade, Voices Dim. Seize Them Back, Whispered The Sepulturero. Speak With Them. Call Their Names. Do This And Do Not Let Sorrow Die For It Is The Sweetening Of Every Gift.

Things Separate From Their Stories Have No Meaning. They Are Only Shapes. Of A Certain Size And Color. A Certain Weight. When Their Meaning Has Become Lost To Us They No Longer Have Even A Name. The Story On The Other Hand Can Never Be Lost From Its Place In The World For It Is That Place.

If There's One Thing On This Planet You Don't Look Like It's A Bunch Of Good Luck Walkin Around.

Acts Have Their Being In The Witness. Without Him Who Can Speak Of It? In The End One Could Even Say That The Act Is Nothing, The Witness All.

All The Time You Spend Tryin To Get Back What's Been Took From You There's More Goin Out The Door. After A While You Just Try And Get A Tourniquet On It.

When The Lambs Is Lost In The Mountain, He Said. They Is Cry. Sometime Come The Mother. Sometime The Wolf.

Between The Wish And The Thing The World Lies Waiting.

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.

The Road Has Its Own Reasons And No Two Travelers Will Have The Same Understanding Of Those Reasons. If Indeed They Come To An Understanding Of Them At All.

But This Man Had Set Down With A Hammer And Chisel And Carved Out A Stone Water Trough To Last Ten Thousand Years. Why Was That? What Was It That He Had Faith In? It Wasn't That Nothin' Would Change. Which Is What You Might Think, I Suppose. He Had To Know Better'n That. I've Thought About It A Good Deal. . . And I Have To Say That The Only Thing I Can Think Is That There Was Some Sort Of Promise In His Heart. And I Don't Have No Intentions Of Carvin' A Stone Water Trough. But I Would Like To Be Able To Make That Kind Of Promise. I Think That's What I Would Like Most Of All.

In The End We All Come To Be Cured Of Our Sentiments. Those Whom Life Does Not Cure Death Will. The World Is Quite Ruthless In Selecting Between The Dream And Reality, Even Where We Will Not. Between The Wish And The Thing The World Lies Waiting. I've Thought A Great Deal About My Life And My Country. I Think There Is Little That Can Be Truly Known. My Family Has Been Fortunate. Others Were Less So. As They Are Often Quick To Point Out.

Finally He Said That If Men Drink The Blood Of God Yet They Do Not Understand The Seriousness Of What They Do. He Said That Men Wish To Be Serious But They Do Not Understand How To Be So. Between Their Acts And Their Ceremonies Lies The World And In This World The Storms Blow And The Trees Twist In The Wind And All The Animals That God Has Made Go To And Fro Yet This World Men Do Not See. They See The Acts Of Their Own Hands Or They See That Which They Name And Call Out To One Another But The World Between Is Invisible To Them

It Just Bothered Me That You Might Think I'm Somethin Special. I Aint.

You Always Pay Too Much. Particularly For Promises. There Aint No Such Thing As A Bargain Promise.

The World Could Only Be Known As It Existed In Men's Hearts. For While It Seemed A Place Which Contained Men It Was In Reality A Place Contained Within Them.

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