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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.

-Cormac McCarthy

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The Universe Is No

Cormac McCarthy

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

Every Man's Death Is Standing In For Every Other. And Since Death Comes To All There Is No Way To Abate The Fear Of It Except To Love The Man Who Stands For Us.

The Frailty Of Everything Revealed At Last. Old And Troubling Issues Resolved Into Nothingness And Night. The Last Instance Of A Thing Takes The Class With It. Turns Out The Light And Is Gone. Look Around You. Ever Is A Long Time. But The Boy Knew What He Knew. That Ever Is No Time At All.

He Imagined The Pain Of The World To Be Like Some Formless Parasitic Being Seeking Out The Warmth Of Human Souls Wherein To Incubate And He Thought He Knew What Made One Liable To Its Visitations. What He Had Not Known Was That It Was Mindless And So Had No Way To Know The Limits Of Those Souls And What He Feared Was That There Might Be No Limits.

Last Words Are Only Words.

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?

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?

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 Different Ways For Them But There Is One World That Will Never Be And That Is The World They Dream Of.

I Was Afraid I Was Goin To Die And Then I Was Afraid I Wasnt.

He Rose And Turned Toward The Lights Of Town. The Tidepools Bright As Smelterpots Among The Dark Rocks Where The Phosphorescent Seacrabs Clambered Back. Passing Through The Salt Grass He Looked Back. The Horse Had Not Moved. A Ship's Light Winked In The Swells. The Colt Stood Against The Horse With Its Head Down And The Horse Was Watching, Out There Past Men's Knowing, Where The Stars Are Drowning And Whales Ferry Their Vast Souls Through The Black And Seamless Sea.

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.

There Was A Sharp Crack From Somewhere On The Mountain. Then Another. It's Just A Tree Falling, He Said. It's Okay. The Boy Was Looking At The Dead Roadside Trees. It's Okay, The Man Said. All The Trees In The World Are Going To Fall Sooner Or Later. But Not On Us.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Hell Ain't Half Full.

We Think We Are The Victims Of Time. In Reality, The Way Of The World Isn't Fixed Anywhere. How Could That Be Possible? We Are Our Own Journey. And Therefore We Are Time As Well. We Are The Same. Fugitive. Inscrutable. Ruthless.

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.

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

I Will Do What I Promised." He Whispered. "no Matter What. I Will Not Send You Into The Darkness Alone.

Every Moment In Your Life Is A Turning And Every One A Choosing. Somewhere You Made A Choice. All Followed To This. The Accounting Is Scrupulous. The Shape Is Drawn. No Line Can Be Erased. I Had No Belief In Your Ability To Move A Coin To Your Bidding. How Could You? A Person's Path Through The World Seldom Changes And Even More Seldom Will It Change Abruptly. And The Shape Of Your Path Was Visible From The Beginning.

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.

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.

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.

Where Men Can't Live Gods Fare No Better.

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 Wrath Of God Lies Sleeping. It Was Hid A Million Years Before Men Were And Only Men Have The Power To Wake It.

He Thought That In The History Of The World It Might Even Be That There Was More Punishment Than Crime But He Took Small Comfort From It.

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.

In The Nights Sometimes Now He'd Wake In The Back And Freezing Waste Out Of Softly Colored Worlds Of Human Love, The Songs Of Birds, The Sun.

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

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.

What Business Is It Of Yours Where I'm From, Friendo?

... A Man Leaves Much When He Leaves His Own Country.

Our Waking Life's Desire To Shape The World To Our Convenience Invites All Manner Of Paradox And Difficulty.

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

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

When The Lies Are All Told And Forgot The Truth Will Be Their Yet.

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.

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.

Anything That Doesn't Take Years Of Your Life And Drive You To Suicide Hardly Seems Worth Doing.

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.

They Watched Storms Out There So Distant They Could Not Be Heard, The Silent Lightning Flaring Sheetwise And The Thin Black Spine Of The Mountain Chain Fluttering And Sucked Away Again In The Dark. They Saw Wild Horses Racing On The Plain, Pounding Their Shadows Down The Night And- Leaving In The Moonlight A Vaporous Dust Like The Palest Stain Of Their Passing.

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

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

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.

I Like What I Do. Some Writers Have Said In Print That They Hated Writing And It Was Just A Chore And A Burden. I Certainly Don't Feel That Way About It. Sometimes It's Difficult. You Know, You Always Have This Image Of The Perfect Thing Which You Can Never Achieve, But Which You Never Stop Trying To Achieve. But I Think ... That's Your Signpost And Your Guide. You'll Never Get There, But Without It You Won't Get Anywhere.

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

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

My Daddy Used To Tell Me Not To Chew On Somethin That Was Eatin You.

All The Pretty Horses

People Complain About The Bad Things That Happen To Em That They Don't Deserve But They Seldom Mention The Good. About What They Done To Deserve Them Things.

They Heard Somewhere In That Tenantless Night A Bell That Tolled And Ceased Where No Bell Was And They Rode Out On The Round Dais Of The Earth Which Alone Was Dark And No Light To It And Which Carried Their Figures And Bore Them Up Into The Swarming Stars So That They Rode Not Under But Among Them And They Rode At Once Jaunty And Circumspect, Like Thieves Newly Loosed In That Dark Electric, Like Young Thieves In A Glowing Orchard, Loosely Jacketed Against The Cold And Ten Thousand Worlds For The Choosing.

Nor Does God Whisper Through The Trees. His Voice Is Not To Be Mistaken. When Men Hear It They Fall To Their Knees And Their Souls Are Riven And They Cry Out To Him And There Is No Fear But Only Wildness Of Heart That Springs From Such Longing.

We Wouldnt Ever Eat Anybody, Would We? No. Of Course Not. Even If We Were Starving? We're Starving Now. You Said We Werent. I Said We Werent Dying. I Didnt Say We Werent Starving. But We Wouldnt. No. We Wouldnt. No Matter What. No. No Matter What. Because We're The Good Guys. Yes. And We're Carrying The Fire. And We're Carrying The Fire. Yes. Okay.

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

A Man Seeks His Own Destiny And No Other, Said The Judge. Wil Or Nill. Any Man Who Could Discover His Own Fate And Elect Therefore Some Opposite Course Could Only Come At Last To That Selfsame Reckoning At The Same Appointed Time, For Each Man's Destiny Is As Large As The World He Inhabits And Contains Within It All Opposites As Well. The Desert Upon Which So Many Have Been Broken Is Vast And Calls For Largeness Of Heart But It Is Also Ultimately Empty. It Is Hard, It Is Barren. Its Very Nature Is Stone.

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

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.

This Country Was Filled With Violent Children Orphaned By War.

How Would You Know If You Were The Last Man On Earth? He Said. I Don't Guess You Would Know It. You'd Just Be It. Nobody Would Know It. It Wouldn't Make Any Difference. When You Die It's The Same As If Everybody Else Died Too.

Any Time You're Throwin Dirt You're Losin Ground.

Best Way To Live In California Is To Be From Somewheres Else.

If Trouble Comes When You Least Expect It Then Maybe The Thing To Do Is To Always Expect It.

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

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

Long Before Morning I Knew That What I Was Seeking To Discover Was A Thing I'd Always Known. That All Courage Was A Form Of Constancy. That It Is Always Himself That The Coward Abandoned First. After This All Other Betrayals Come Easily.

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?

I Don't Know What Of Our Culture Is Going To Survive, Or If We Survive. If You Look At The Greek Plays, They're Really Good. And There's Just A Handful Of Them. Well, How Good Would They Be If There Were 2,500 Of Them? But That's The Future Looking Back At Us. Anything You Can Think Of, There's Going To Be Millions Of Them. Just The Sheer Number Of Things Will Devalue Them. I Don't Care Whether It's Art, Literature, Poetry Or Drama, Whatever. The Sheer Volume Of It Will Wash It Out. I Mean, If You Had Thousands Of Greek Plays To Read, Would They Be That Good? I Don't Think So.

Each Memory Recalled Must Do Some Violence To Its Origins.

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.

You Have To Carry The Fire." I Don't Know How To." Yes, You Do." Is The Fire Real? The Fire?" Yes It Is." Where Is It? I Don't Know Where It Is." Yes You Do. It's Inside You. It Always Was There. I Can See It.

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.

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

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.

In History There Are No Control Groups. There Is No One To Tell Us What Might Have Been. We Weep Over The Might Have Been, But There Is No Might Have Been. There Never Was. It Is Supposed To Be True That Those Who Do Not Know History Are Condemned To Repeat It. I Don't Believe Knowing Can Save Us. What Is Constant In History Is Greed And Foolishness And A Love Of Blood And This Is A Thing That Even God--who Knows All That Can Be Known--seems Powerless To Change.

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.

Whatever Exists, He Said. Whatever In Creation Exists Without My Knowledge Exists Without My Consent. He Looked About At The Dark Forest In Which They Were Bivouacked. He Nodded Toward The Specimens He'd Collected. These Anonymous Creatures, He Said, May Seem Little Or Nothing In The World. Yet The Smallest Crumb Can Devour Us. Any Smallest Thing Beneath Yon Rock Out Of Men's Knowing. Only Nature Can Enslave Man And Only When The Existence Of Each Last Entity Is Routed Out And Made To Stand Naked Before Him Will He Be Properly Suzerain Of The Earth.

They Rode Like Men Invested With A Purpose Whose Origins Were Antecedent To Them, Like Blood Legatees Of An Order Both Imperative And Remote. For Although Each Man Among Them Was Discrete Unto Himself, Conjoined They Made A Thing That Had Not Been Before And In That Communal Soul Were Wastes Hardly Reckonable More Than Those Whited Regions On Old Maps Where Monsters Do Live And Where There Is Nothing Other Of The Known World Save Conjectural Winds.

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

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.

Each The Others World Entire.

If It Is Life That You Feel You Are Missing I Can Tell You Where To Find It. In The Law Courts, In Business, In Government. There Is Nothing Occurring In The Streets. Nothing But A Dumbshow Composed Of The Helpless And The Impotent.

You Are Either Born A Writer Or You Are Not.

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

The Cooler Days Have Brought A Wistful Mood Upon Him. The Smell Of Coalsmoke In The Air At Night. Old Times, Dead Years. For Him Such Memories Are Bitter Ones.

Scars Have The Strange Power To Remind Us That Our Past Is Real.

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.

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

I Got Here The Same Way The Coin Did.

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.

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

Doomed Enterprises Divide Lives Forever Into The Then And Now

They Sat On A Bench And Sproule Held His Wounded Arm To His Chest And Rocked Back And Forth And Blinked In The Sun. What Do You Want To Do? Said The Kid. Get A Drink Of Water. Other Than That. I Dont Know. You Want To Try And Head Back? To Texas? I Don't Know Where Else. We'd Never Make It. Well You Say. I Aint Got No Say. He Was Coughing Again. He Held His Chest With His Good Hand And Sat As If He'd Get His Breath. What Have You Got, A Cold? I Got Consumption. Consumption? He Nodded. I Come Out Here For My Health.

In History There Are No Control Groups. There Is No One To Tell Us What Might Have Been. We Weep Over The Might Have Been, But There Is No Might Have Been. There Never Was.

All The Pretty Horses

Hard Weather, Says The Old Man. So Let It Be. Wrap Me In The Weathers Of The Earth, I Will Be Hard And Hard. My Face Will Wash Rain Like The Stones.

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.

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.

We're Carrying The Fire.

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

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

By Early Evening All The Sky To The North Had Darkened And The Spare Terrain They Trod Had Turned A Neuter Gray As Far As The Eye Could See. They Grouped In The Road At The Top Of A Rise And Looked Back. The Storm Front Towered Above Them And The Wind Was Cool On Their Sweating Faces. They Slumped Bleary-eyed In Their Saddles And Looked At One Another. Shrouded In The Black Thunderheads The Distant Lightning Glowed Mutely Like Welding Seen Through Foundry Smoke. As If Repairs Were Under Way At Some Flawed Place N The Iron Dark Of The World.

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

The Jagged Mountains Were Pure Blue In The Dawn And Everywhere Birds Twittered And The Sun When It Rose Caught The Moon In The West So That They Lay Opposed To Each Other Across The Earth, The Sun Whitehot And The Moon A Pale Replica, As If They Were The Ends Of A Common Bore Beyond Whose Terminals Burned Worlds Past All Reckoning.

Not All Dying Words Are True And This Blessing Is No Less Real For Being Shorn Of Its Ground.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I Can Normally Tell How Intelligent A Man Is By How Stupid He Thinks I Am.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Men Of God And Men Of War Have Strange Affinities.

The Small Wad Of Burning Paper Drew Down To A Wisp Of Flame And Then Died Out Leaving A Faint Pattern For Just A Moment In The Incandescence Like The Shape Of A Flower, A Molten Rose. Then All Was Dark Again.

There Is No God And We Are His Prophets.

There Is No God

The Names Of The Cerros And The Sierras And The Deserts Exist Only On Maps. We Name Them That We Do Not Lose Our Way. Yet It Was Because The Way Was Lost To Us Already That We Have Made Those Names. The World Cannot Be Lost. We Are The Ones. And It Is Because These Names And These Coordinates Are Our Own Naming That They Cannot Save Us. They Cannot Find For Us The Way Again.

He Could Not Construct For The Child's Pleasure The World He'd Lost Without Constructing The Loss As Well And He Thought Perhaps The Child Had Known This Better Than He.

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

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.

So Everything Is Necessary. Every Least Thing. This Is The Hard Lesson. Nothing Can Be Dispensed With. Nothing Despised. Because The Seams Are Hid From Us, You See. The Joinery. The Way In Which The World Is Made. We Have No Way To Know What Could Be Taken Away. What Omitted. We Have No Way To Tell What Might Stand And What Might Fall.

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.

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.

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

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.

It Was Always Himself That The Coward Abandoned First. After This All Other Betrayals Came Easily.

Suttree Surfaced From These Fevered Deeps To Hear A Maudlin Voice Chant Latin By His Bedside, What Medieval Ghost Come To Usurp His Fallen Corporeality. An Oiled Thumball Redolent Of Lime And Sage Pondered His Shuttered Lids.miserere Mei, Deus ...his Ears Anointed, His Lips ... Omnis Maligna Discordia ... Bechrismed With Scented Oils He Lay Boneless In A Cold Euphoria. Japheth When You Left Your Father's House The Birds Had Flown. You Were Not Prepared For Such Weathers. You'd Spoke Too Lightly Of The Winter In Your Father's Heart. We Saw You In The Streets. Sad.

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.

For Things At A Common Destination There Is A Common Path. Not Always Easy To See. But There.

She Was Gone And The Coldness Of It Was Her Final Gift.

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

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.

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.

It Looks A Lot Better From Up Here Than It Does Down There, Dont It? Yes. It Does. There's A Lot Of Things Look Better At A Distance. Yeah? I Think So. I Guess There Are. The Life You've Lived, For One. Yeah. Maybe What Of It You Aint Lived Yet, Too.

Creative Work Is Often Driven By Pain. It May Be That If You Don't Have Something In The Back Of Your Head Driving You Nuts, You May Not Do Anything. It's Not A Good Arrangement. If I Were God, I Wouldn't Have Done It That Way.

It Is Personal. That's What An Education Does. It Makes The World Personal.

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.

They Lay Listening. Can You Do It? When The Time Comes? When The Time Comes There Will Be No Time. Now Is The Time. Curse God And Die. What If It Doesn't Fire? It Has To Fire. What If It Doesn't Fire? Could You Crush That Beloved Skull With A Rock? Is There Such A Being Within You Of Which You Know Nothing? Can There Be? Hold Him In Your Arms. Just So. The Soul Is Quick. Pull Him Toward You. Kiss Him. Quickly.

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.

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.

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

What Do You Believe? I Believe That The Last And The First Suffer Equally. Pari Passu. Equally? It Is Not Alone In The Dark Of Death That All Souls Are One Soul. Of What Would You Repent? Nothing. Nothing? One Thing. I Spoke With Bitterness About My Life And I Said That I Would Take My Own Part Against The Slander Of Oblivion And Against The Monstrous Facelessness Of It And That I Would Stand A Stone In The Very Void Where All Would Read My Name. Of That Vanity I Recant All.

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)

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.

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

In The End We All Come To Be Cured Of Our Sentiments.

All The Pretty Horses

I've Always Been Interested In The Southwest. There Isn't A Place In The World You Can Go Where They Don't Know About Cowboys And Indians And The Myth Of The West.

He May Be Dead; Or He May Be Teaching English.

Teaching English

And In The Dream I Knew That He Was Goin On Ahead And That He Was Fixin To Make A Fire Somewhere Out There In All That Dark And All That Cold And I Knew That Whenever I Got There He Would Be There. And Then I Woke Up.

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

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.

Listen To Me, He Said, When Your Dreams Are Of Some World That Never Was Or Some World That Never Will Be, And You're Happy Again, Then You'll Have Given Up. Do You Understand? And You Can't Give Up, I Won't Let You.

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.

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.

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 Notion That The Species Can Be Improved In Some Way, That Everyone Could Live In Harmony, Is A Really Dangerous Idea. Those Who Are Afflicted With This Notion Are The First Ones To Give Up Their Souls, Their Freedom. Your Desire That It Be That Way Will Enslave You And Make Your Life Vacuous.

If A Man's At Odds To Know His Own Mind It's Because He Hasn't Got Aught But His Mind To Know It With.

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

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.

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

Between The Wish And The Thing The World Lies Waiting.

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.

Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave.

He Rocked In The Swells, Floating Like The First Germ Of Life Adrift On The Earth's Cooling Seas, Formless Macule Of Plasm Trapped In A Vapor Drop And All Creation Yet To Come.

The Carrion Birds Sat About The Topmost Corners Of The Houses With Their Wings Outstretched In Attitudes Of Exhortation Like Dark Little Bishops.

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.

If You Break Little Promises, You'll Break Big Ones.

The Martyr Who Longs For The Flames Can Be No Right Candidate For Them.

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

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.

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

No Lists Of Things To Be Done. The Day Providential To Itself. The Hour. There Is No Later. This Is Later. All Things Of Grace And Beauty Such That One Holds Them To One's Heart Have A Common Provenance In Pain. Their Birth In Grief And Ashes.

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?

A Man's At Odds To Know His Mind Cause His Mind Is Aught He Has To Know It With. He Can Know His Heart, But He Dont Want To. Rightly So. Best Not To Look In There. It Aint The Heart Of A Creature That Is Bound In The Way That God Has Set For It. You Can Find Meanness In The Least Of Creatures, But 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.

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.

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

Nothin Wounded Goes Uphill, He Said. It Just Dont Happen.

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

You Say You Can't? Then Don't Do It. That's 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.

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

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.

Choose Your Enemies Carefully 'cause They Will Define You Make Them Interesting 'cause In Some Ways They Will Mind You They're Not There In The Beginning But When Your Story Ends Gonna Last With You Longer Than Your Friend

He Said That Whether A Man's Life Was Writ In A Book Someplace Or Whether It Took Its Form Day By Day Was One And The Same For It Had But One Reality And That Was The Living Of It.

Teaching Writing Is A Hustle.

There Is No Later. This Is Later.

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

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.

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