Cormac McCarthy Quotes

I've made up so many stores about my name, I can't remember.

We seem, particularly over here in the West and in America in particular, to have forgotten that we are, in large measures, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.

So I had all the names, three names, and that's good to have on a soap.

My first novel, 'Man Walks Into a Room,' is about a man who's lost his memory and has to start a second life. On one level, it's about how we create a coherent sense of self.

For people who are displaced, you can reconstruct the story of your life from the objects you have access to, but if you don't have the objects then there are holes in your life. This is why people in Bosnia - if anyone was running back into a burning house, it was to salvage photos.

Stories are one of the means by which a culture preserves its identity.

It's so important for young girls of color - young girls of any color - to see diverse women as the heroes of their own story.

I'm called an oral historian, which is something of a joke. Oral history was here long before the pen, long before Gutenberg and the printing press. The difference is I have a tape recorder in my hand.

Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos, we see despite all the chaos.

When you don't put your initials behind your name, and I've got tons of them, and when you talk about storytelling or love or gratitude, you're diminishing your legitimacy and importance in this world.

The names are the first things to go, after the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart. We keep our memories longer than our names.

I'm a storyteller, I'm not a literary writer, and I don't want to be a literary writer. People say to me, "Oh, when are you going to write something different?" What? I don't want to write anything different. I'm writing relationships between people, all different colors, all different sizes, all different sexual orientations, and that's what I want to do.

Who is here with you?” “Don’t stop,” she begged. “Who is here with you?” he repeated, harshly this time. “You are.” “What is my name?” “Reyes

I walked down my snow covered street. Out of habit I turned and checked for my footsteps. When I arrived at my building I looked for my name on the buzzers. And because I know that sometimes I see things that aren't there, after dinner I called Information to ask if I was listed.(25)

What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? ...Stories tell us who we are. What we’re capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us what’s important.

I don't know their names. Their names have been erased from my memory banks. If I tried to bring 'em back, I'd get shocked.

Stories last longer: but only by becoming only stories.

He raised his eyes. "Sister. See. This time I knew you." Asha's heart skipped a beat. "Theon?" His lips skinned back in what might have been a grin. Half his teeth were gone, and half those still left him were broken and splintered. "Theon," he repeated. "My name is Theon. You have to know your name.

What’s her name? Claire, what’s her name?

"Difficulty" is the name of an ancient tool that was created purely to help us define who we are.

I consider myself a storyteller, not really even an actor. I consider myself a storyteller.

If I ever tell the same story twice, just laugh and roll with it because, when you get older, you start doing that kind of stuff.

A nickname is not supposed to be your only name. I miss Jennifer a bit.

In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which is but materials to serve for a mythology.

Charlie Appleyard can be anybody; but Ive used him sometimes in chat pieces, and these are all chat pieces about the history of Charlie Appleyard.