Quotessence
Home / Authors / Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers Quotes

Film writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllHeart Is A Lonely HunterKnowsPeopleHeartWorldHumansLonelySoulWritingFeelings

Famous Carson McCullers Quotes

“He waited for the black, terrible anger as though for some beast out of the night. But it did not come to him. His bowels seemed weighted with lead, and he walked slowly and lingered against fences and the cold, wet walls of buildings by the way. Descent into the depths until at last there was no further chasm below. He touched the solid bottom of despair and there took ease.”

DespairGiving UpHopelessnessRock BottomLosing Heart
Book:The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Create image

“They meant what they said about freedom. They fought a real revolution. They fought so that this could be a country where every man was equal in the sight of Nature - with an equal chance. This didn't mean that twenty per cent of the people were free to rob the other eighty per cent of the means to live. This didn't mean for one rich man to sweat the piss out of ten thousand poor men so that he can get richer. This didn't mean the tyrants were free to get this country in such a fix that millions of people are ready to do anything – cheat, lie, or whack off their right arm – just to work for three squares and a flop. They have made the word freedom a blasphemy. You hear me? They have made the word freedom stink like a skunk to all who know.”

WorkFreedomPoorClassRichEqualityExploitationCapital
Book:The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Create image

“Frankie watched the soft moths tremble and press against the window screen. The moths came every evening when the lamp on her desk was lighted. They came from out of the August night and fluttered and clung against the screen. "To me it is the irony of fate," she said "The way they come here. Those moths could fly anywhere. Yet they keep hanging around the windows of his house.”

FreedomFateIrony
Book:The Member of the Wedding
Create image

“I think I have a vague idea what you were driving at," she said. "We all of us somehow caught. We born this way and we don't know why. But we caught anyhow. I born Berenice. You born Frankie. John Henry born John Henry. And maybe we wants to widen and bust free. But no matter what we do we still caught. Me is me and you is you and he is he. We each one of us somehow caught all by ourself. Is that what you was trying to say?”

SocietyIdentityCaught
Book:The Member of the Wedding
Create image

“Afterward the Captain was to tell himself that in this one instant he knew everything. Actually, in a moment when a great but unknown shock is expected, the mind instinctively prepares itself by abandoning momentarily the faculty of surprise. In that vulnerable instant a kaleidoscope of half-guessed possibilities project themselves, and when the disaster has defined itself there is the feeling of having understood beforehand in some supernatural way.”

MindBrainPsychologyInstinctSurpriseChaosTraumaThoughtShockPremonition
Book:Reflections in a Golden Eye
Create image

“Why? Why was it that in cases of real love the one who is left does not more often follow the beloved by suicide? Only because the living must bury the dead? Because of the measured rites that must be fulfilled after a death? Because it is as though the one who is left steps for a time upon a stage and each second swells to an unlimited amount of time and he id watched by many eyes? Because there is a function he must carry out? Or perhaps, when there is love, the widowed must stay for the resurrection of the beloved - so that the one who has gone is not really dead, but grows and is created for a second time in the soul of the living? Why?”

DeathLossGriefMourning
Book:The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Create image

“They both turned at the same time. They were close against each other. She felt him trembling and her fists were tight enough to crack. 'Oh, God,' he kept saying over and over. It was like her head was broke off from her body and thrown away. And her eyes looked up straight into the blinding sun while she counted something in her mind. And then this was the way. This was how it was.”

Sex
Book:The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Create image

“And on that subject why was it that the smartest people mostly missed that point? By nature all people are of both sexes. So that marriage and the bed is not all by any means. The proof? Real youth and old age. Because often old men's voices grow high and reedy and they take on a mincing walk. And old women sometimes grow fat and their voices get rough and deep and they grow dark little mustaches. And he even proved it himself—the part of him that sometimes almost wished he was a mother and that Mick and Baby were his kids.”

AgeGenderComing Of AgeQueer
Book:The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Create image

“She looked him full in the face with the most amazed expression. Even now he could not think of it without a shudder. And after a horribly long stare Alison had burst out laughing yes, laughing. She laughed so hard that she choked herself and someone had to beat her on the back. Finally she excused herself from the table. And all through that tormenting evening whenever he looked at her she gave him such a mocking smile.”

CaughtStealing
Book:Reflections in a Golden Eye
Create image

“The autumn was a happy time. The crops around the countryside were good, and over at the Forks Falls market the price of tobacco held firm that year. After the long hot summer the first cool days had a clean bright sweetness. Goldenrod grew along the dusty roads, and the sugar cane was ripe and purple. The bus came each day from Cheehaw to carry a few of the younger children to the consolidated school to get an education. Boys hunted foxes in the pinewoods, winter quilts were aired out on the wash lines, and sweet potatoes bedded in the ground with straw against the colder months to come. In the evening, delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys, and the moon was round and orange in the autumn sky. There is no stillness like the quiet of the first cold nights in the fall. Sometimes, late in the night when there was no wind, there could be heard in the town the thin wild whistle of the train that goes through Society City on its way far off to the North.”

Rural LifeChange Of SeasonsAutum
Book:The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The Member of the Wedding.
Create image

“Because things accumulate around your name," said Berenice. "You have a name and one thing after another happens to you, and you behave in various ways and do things, so that soon the name begins to have meaning. Things have accumulated around the name, if it is bad and you have a bad reputation, then you just can't jump out of your name and escape like that. And if it is good and you have a good reputation, then you should be content and satisfied.”

ReputationNameGood Vs Bad
Book:The Member of the Wedding
Create image

“... İyi dinle. Sevgiyi düşündüm ve bir çözüme vardım. Nerede yanıldığımızı anladım. Diyelim ki insan ilk kez seviyor. Peki neyi seviyor?” Çocuğun yumuşak dudakları yarı aralıktı. Hiç sesini çıkarmadı. “Bir kadını,” dedi yaşlı adam. “Bilimsiz, dayanaksız, Tanrı’nın dünyasındaki en tehlikeli ve kutsal deneyime girişiyor. Bir kadını seviyor. Tamam mı, evlat?” “Evet,” dedi çocuk yavaşça. “Sevmeye yanlış yönden başlıyor. En sonundan başlıyor. Böyle çile çekmesine şaşacak ne var? İnsan nasıl sevmeli biliyor musun?” Yaşlı adam uzanıp çocuğun deri ceketinin yakasını tuttu. Hafifçe sarstı onu. Yeşil gözlerini hiç kırpmadan ciddi ciddi bakıyordu. “Evlat, sevmeye nereden başlamalı biliyor musun?” Çocuk daha da büzülmüş, kımıldamadan oturmuş dinliyordu. Yavaş yavaş başını ikiyana salladı. Yaşlı adam ona doğru eğilip fısıldadı: “Bir ağaçtan. Bir taştan. Bir buluttan.”

Carson MccullersKüskün Kahvenin TürküsüThe Ballad Of The Sad Cafe
Book:The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Create image

“Bir seven vardır, bir de sevilen. Ama bunlar başka başka diyarların insanlarıdır. Sevilen çoğu zaman sevenin içinde uzun zamandır saklı duran sevgi için yalnızca bir uyarıcıdır. Her nasılsa, seven de bilir bunu. Ruhunda sevgisini eşsiz bir duygu olarak algılar. Tuhaf, yeni bir yalnızlık duymaya başlar. Ona acı veren de bu duygudur işte. Bu yüzden, sevgisini elinden geldiğince içinde barındırmalı, kendisine yepyeni bir iç dünya yaratmalıdır. Kendisiyle bütünleşen, yoğun, tuhaf bir dünya...”

öYküCarson MccullersKüskün Kahvenin Türküsü
Book:The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories
Create image

“Hay momentos en que le mayor anhelo de un hombre es tener alguien a quien amar, algún punto central en que poder concentrar las emociones difusas. Y también hay momentos en que es preciso descargar en odio los disgustos, los desengaños y temores, bullentes e inquietos como espermatozoides. El desgraciado capitán no tenía a quien odiar, y en los últimos mese se había sentido muy triste.”

Represión
Book:Reflections in a Golden Eye
Create image

“Love is the bridge that leads from the I sense to the We, and there is a paradox about personal love. Love of another individual opens a new relation between the personality and the world. The lover responds in a new way to nature and may even write poetry. Love is affirmation; it motivates the yes responses and the sense of wider communication. Love casts out fear, and in the security of this togetherness we find contentment, courage. We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: "Who am I?" "Why am I?" "Where am I going?" - and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable.”

WorldWayWritingMayAgeIndividualLove IsHonestSecurityCommunicationPersonalityLoversRelationResponseCastsBeing HonestBridgesContentmentParadoxNew WaysAffirmationHauntingTogethernessLove PoetryCharitablePersonal Love
Author:Carson McCullers
Create image

“Now hoppin'-john was F. Jasmine's very favorite food. She had always warned them to wave a plate of rice and peas before her nose when she was in her coffin, to make certain there was no mistake; for if a breath of life was left in her, she would sit up and eat, but if she smelled the hopping-john, and did not stir, then they could just nail down the coffin and be certain she was truly dead.”

IfsCertainLeftMistakeBreathsWaveNosesCulinaryPlatesNailsRiceCoffinsPeasJasmineHoppingFavorite Foods
Author:Carson McCullers
Create image