Significant and Moving Quotes

On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world. Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was?

-McCarthy 27

This is one of the father's epiphanies in which he realizes he and his son have had the terrible fortune of living the apocalyptic events. Religion is no more in this world. Unity is no more. Nothing remains. The question is also very intriguing. To me they differ because what is never to be has the potential of changing and you can have hope that it can happen. The things that never were can't be changed and can only burden you.

If you break little promises you'll break big ones. That's what you said.

-McCarthy 29

This quote is a big stab to the heart for the father. His son is basically saying that the father will hurt him at some point. This is one of those moments that really touches you, especially so if you are a father.

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.

-McCarthy 46

I really like this one because it shows how they really are living in the last moments of the world. There will never be a later. It is also a really eerie moment because it is described as almost being beautiful. McCarthy says that things of beauty come from grief. And no greater grief could occur then the end of the world, what great beauty is to come of it?

People were always getting ready for tomorrow.
I didnt believe in that.
Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them.
It didnt even know they were there.

-McCarthy 142

This is a small part of a very interesting conversation between the father and a survivor. The survivor is the one saying he doesn't believe in getting ready for tomorrow, almost as if it is unfair to it. I like how McCarthy makes tomorrow become real and have a mind of its own. It's like tomorrow is an unsuspecting creature, yet no matter what we do to prepare it will always win. The personification used is brilliant in my mind.

Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you're happy again, then you'll have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up, I won't let you.

-McCarthy 160

This little rant by the father is very significant in the story because dreams show a lot about the characters. The father has many mixed confusing dreams throughout the story-some happy, most sad. The boy has regular nightmares that evolve into something much worse. It is very ironic that the father would tell his child, who he wants to protect, that as soon as his dreams made him happy he has given up. And stranger still, the boy seems to subconsciously take that to heart because his dreams only get worse.

Ten thousand dreams ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts

-McCarthy 230

As I have mentioned before this is my favorite line of the entire story. It is perfectly phrased to make you realize the true extent of how depressing a world they live in. It is a world that has killed ten thousand dreams and undoubtedly more. This line destroys any hope they have left of survival.

You forget some things, dont you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

-McCarthy 10

In a destroyed world the things you want to forget are gruesome and will scar you. And what you have to remember, at least in the father's case, is what you had and unfortunately will never have again. Memories are the only happiness that can be found in this wasteland and forgetting them is like loosing any chance at being happy.