Carson McCullers Quotes

There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries.

I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree.

When a person knows and can't make the others understand, what does he do?

Comparing the Brooklyn that I know with Manhattan is like comparing a comfortable and complacent duenna to her more brilliant and neurotic sister.

You don't know what it is to store up a lot of details and then come upon something real.

I do not have any home. So why should I be homesick?

That was the best of all. To speak the truth and be attended.

They are the we of me.

Sunday afternoons are the longest afternoons of all.

Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.

Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons--throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to.

The world is certainty a sudden place.

His own life seemed so solitary, a fragile column supporting nothing amidst the wreckage of the years.

Sometimes this fellow's music was like little colored pieces of crystal candy, and other times it was the softest, saddest thing she had ever imagined about.

People, unless they are nilly-willy or very sick, cannot be taken into the hands and be changed overnight into somthing more worth-while and profitable.

And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many.

Passion is more important than justice.

But all the time-no matter what she was doing-there was music.

Owing to the fact he was a mute they were able to give him all the qualities they wanted him to have.

While Time, The endless idiot, runs screaming round the world.

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.

The theme is the theme of humiliation, which is the square root of sin, as opposed to the freedom from humiliation, and love, which is the square root of wonderful.

Love is the main generator of all good writing... Love, passion, compassion, are all welded together.

There was hope in him, and soon perhaps the outline of his journey would take form.

Some men are heroes by nature in that they will give all that is in them without regard to the effort or to the personal returns.

In one of their quarrels, they had begun calling each other Mister. and Misses., and since then they had never made it up enough to change it.

What did he understand? Nothing. Where was he headed? Nowhere. What did he want? To know. What? A meaning. Why? A riddle.

The eyes of his friend were moist and dark, and in them he saw the little rectangled pictures of himself that he had watched a thousand times.

It was like that kid had been born knowing how to read. He was only in the second grade but he loved to read stories by himself - and he never asked anybody else to read to him.

By the moonlight he watched his wife for the last time. His hand sought the adjacent flesh and sorrow paralleled desire in the immense complexity of love.

Next to music, beer was best.

He did not wholly understand the intricate play of ideas and the complex phrases, but as he read he sensed a strong, who purpose behind the words and he felt that he almost understood.

We are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known

Each day was very much like any other day, because they were alone so much that nothing ever disturbed them.

Because in some men, it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons - throw it to some human being or some human idea.

The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear

Doctor Copeland belt old evil anger in him. The words rose inchoately to his throat and he could not speak them. They would listen to the old man. Yet to word the reason they will not attend.

A person can't pick up they children and just squeeze them to which-a-way they wants them to be.

Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was the symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen.

The old bitterness came up in him and he did not have time to cogitate and push it down.

There was another thing bigger than the tiredness – and this was the strong crew purpose.

Because of the insolence of all the white race he was afraid to lose his dignity in friendliness.

It wasn't like she was lonely and in fact – she had understood it all in every way except with her brain. Now she knew that she knew.

The job wouldn't be just put the summer, but for a long time, as long as she could see ahead. Once they were used to the money coming in it would be impossible to do without again.