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21 " 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. "
― Cormac McCarthy , The Road
22 " 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. "
23 " ...the space which [books] occupied was itself an expectation. "
24 " Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery. "
25 " If only my heart were stone. "
26 " 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. "
27 " What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not. "
28 " His mind was betraying him. Phantoms not heard from in a thousand years rousing slowly from their sleep. "
29 " Each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. "
30 " On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world. "
31 " When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. "
32 " Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. "
33 " People 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. "
34 " Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself? "
35 " Rich dreams now which he was loathe to wake from. Things no longer known in the world. The cold drove him forth to mend the fire. Memory of her crossing the lawn toward the house in the early morning in a thin rose gown that clung to her breasts. 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. "
36 " He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality,known or not. "
37 " Do you think I lie to you?No.But you think I might lie to you about dying.Yes.Okay. I might. But we're not dying.Okay. "
38 " This was the perfect day of his childhood. This the day to shape the days upon. "
39 " By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp. "
40 " 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. "