Cormac McCarthy Quotes

Careless shepherd make excellent dinner for wolf.

Honey, ... When a wolf watches a lamb, he's not thinking about the lamb's mommy.

Living is dangerous. The important thing is to know the limits.

Before I was the hunter. Now I'm the hunted.

Beatrice," she says. "Beatrice, we have to run." She pulls my arm across her shoulders and hauls me to my feet. She is dressed like my mother and she looks like my mother, but she is holding a gun, and the determined look in her eyes is unfamiliar to me.

Where there are sheep, the wolves are never very far away.

Tis e'er the lot of the innocent in the world, to fly to the wolf for succor from the lion.

I’m fighting for my life, I have to defend myself. If I don’t defend myself, no one else will.

The minute I leave my house - that is where I feel safe - I'm immediately in the jungle. The key is to survive through the cold world.

A short-order cook, just off work, makes easy tracking for lions and worse

A woman wishes to mother a man simply because she sees into his helplessness, his need of an amiable environment, his touching self-delusion.

All I know is, it is better to be the whale than the squid.

Not daring to flee since my general location has just been broadcast to any killer who cares. I mean, I know it's cold out here and not everybody has a sleeping bag.

Let not him that feares feathers come among wild-foule.

He who fears dangers will not perish by them.

Coerced innocence is like an imprisoned lark,--open the door, and it is off forever. The bird that roams through the sky and the groves unrestrained knows how to dodge the hawk and protect itself; but the caged one, the moment it leaves its bars and bolts behind, is pounced upon by the fowler or the vulture.

With so much protection, wouldn't one be able to wander among the undead ranks, taunting them at will with no danger of repercussion?

Security is the denial of life

That's the way the system works. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

The talk of sheltering woman from the fierce storms of life is the sheerest mockery, for they beat on her from every point of thecompass, just as they do on man, and with more fatal results, for he has been trained to protect himself, to resist, to conquer.

You managed not to get eaten then?

Where Jack isn't safe, Tom's in danger.

I thank God who slowly dressed me in a heavy skin, otherwise I would now be dead.

For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.

You show you care, you die.You show you fear, you die.You show nothing, maybe you live.