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McCarthy is undoubtedly one of the finest writers the world has seen since the likes of Faulkner and Melville with such a particular style of writing that evokes a wide array of emotions. Can you tell where these unforgettable quotes are from in his anthology?

How Well Do You Know Cormac McCarthy?

"Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before."

Who could forget the chilling first page of the book detailing this uniquely apocalyptic world?

The Road

Let's start with an easy one. Where does this quote come from?

"Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that self-same 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 judge said this chilling quote about the possibilities of destiny. Pretty unique view, eh?

Blood Meridian

How about this memorable quote?

"I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this."

Chigurh uttered this quote after the unalterable coin flip proved someone's destiny. Man. Destiny and coin flips. How unique!

No Country for Old Men

Here's another classic quote:

"No matter through whatever turnings nor how many of them. Till our turn comes at last and our turn passes."

La dueña Alfonsa gave John Grady the same metaphor her father gave her as a child: the idea of destiny symbolized through a coin's heads and tails, cara y cruz. Where does McCarthy come up with so many new ideas?

All the Pretty Horses

Can you get this quote?

"It howled execration upon the dim camarine world of its nativity wail on wail while he lay there gibbering with palsied jawhasps, his hands putting back the night like some witless paraclete beleaguered with all limbo's clamor."

What a wonderful passage! The only complaint about McCarthy's vocabulary I have is that he isn't quite grandiloquent enough for my bourgeois tastes.

Outer Dark

Dust off your dictionary. Can you get these?

"We are come to a world within the world. In these alien reachs, these maugre sinks and interstitial wastes that the righteous see from carriage and car another life dreams. Illshapen or black or deranged, fugitive of all order, strangers in everyland."

On the surface it may seem like a metaphor for the mysteries of fishing on the Tennessee River, but it's much deeper than that. I wouldn't expect you to get it.

Suttree

Here's some more new words for you:

"It followed his movements as he approached and then turned its head when he reached out his hand to it, picked it up, feeling it warm and palpitant in the palm of his hand, not watching him, not moving, but only looking out over the valley calmly with its cold-glinting accipitral eyes, its hackles riffling in the wind."

What is life without a large vocabulary to alienate those with whom you try to communicate? How can we communicate with each other at all? Nothing matters. Nothing is real.

The Orchard Keeper

Stretch your vocabulary some more. Where did this quote originate?

Give up. You cannot succeed. We all seek perfection and cannot obtain it.

Let's get into the real meat of McCarthy's writing style. Identify this quote:

Right is subjective. This is your destiny. Embrace the chaos.

Here's a personal favorite of mine:

Hollow explanation. Dissatisfaction. Move on. The end.

They're all one and the same.

Remember the old nihilistic guy from that one book who keeps to himself and has given up on everything? What was his name again?

You probably only read The Road if anything, you pleb.

Oh God I caint take no more. Please lift this burden from me for I caint bear it.

"You speak truer than you know." You've read some of the books, but there's still some books out there for you to suffer through the human condition.

You aint nothin.

You have a pretty commanding knowledge of the text. There may have been a few details that escaped you through the readings, but that's okay. No one is perfect, and you're foolish to think you can achieve that.

Yes. God yes.

"You never said nothin about how many times you could win." You either cheated or are my professor from my Major Authors class, so congrats. Soak in the meaningless victory that may sustain you today but will leave you empty tomorrow.

That's it for you, buddy, he hissed.

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How Well Do You Know Cormac McCarthy?

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