Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone. The silence of a firelit room when suddenly the clock stops ticking, the nervous shadows in an empty house – it is better to take in your mortal enemy than face the terror of living alone.

— Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers Quotes

Always he wanted to set her up to something, to give to her. And not only a sundae or some sweet to eat – but something real. That was all he wanted for himself – to give to her. Biff’s mouth hardened. He had done nothing wrong but in him he felt a strange guilt. Why? The dark guilt in all men, unreckoned and without a name.

— Carson McCullers

You are walking down a street and you meet somebody. Anybody. And you look at each other. And you are you. And he is him. Yet when you look at each other, the eyes make a connection. Then you go off one way. And he goes off another way. You go off into different parts of town, and maybe you never see each other again. Not in your whole life.

— Carson McCullers

He mentioned Beethoven. She had read in the library about that musician – his name was pronounced with an a and spelled with a double e. He was a German fellow like Mozart. When he was living he spoke in a foreign language and lived in a foreign place – like she wanted to do.

— Carson McCullers

The warring love and hatred – love for his people and hatred for the oppressors of his people – that left him exhausted and sick in spirit.

— Carson McCullers

She stood in the corner of the bride’s room, wanting to say: I love the two of you so much and you are the we of me. Please take me with you from the wedding, for we belong to be together.

— Carson McCullers

She hated herself, and had become a loafer and a big no-good who hung around the summer kitchen: dirty and greedy and mean and sad.

— Carson McCullers

There was something about speaking in a foreign language that made her feel like she’d been around a lot.

— Carson McCullers

There are times when a man’s greatest need is to have someone to love, some focal point for his diffused emotions. Also there are times when the irritations, disappointments, and fears of life, restless as spermatozoids, must be released in hate.

— Carson McCullers

Henry Johnson was the third husband, the one who had gone crazy on Berenice. He was all right for three.

— Carson McCullers

The whole world was this music and she could not listen hard enough.

— Carson McCullers

In his heart there coursed a wild tirade of curses, words of love, supplications, and abuse. But in the end he turned away, still silent.

— Carson McCullers

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.

— Carson McCullers

Soms, als ze in het bleke schemerdonker over straat slenterde met de bitterzoete geur van stof en bloemen – lenteavonden met verlichte ramen en de langgerekte kreten voor het avondeten, wanneer de huiszwaluwen zich buitelend boven de stad verzamelden en samen naar hun nesten vlogen en de lucht leeg en wijd achterlieten – in die lange lenteschemer welde er een soort weemoed in haar op en verstarde haar hart, stokte bijna.

— Carson McCullers

Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone. The silence of a firelit room when suddenly the clock stops ticking, the nervous shadows in an empty house – it is better to take in your mortal enemy than face the terror of living alone.

— Carson McCullers

This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have nothing to do with time going by at all.

— Carson McCullers

In the beginning of dog days Frankie’s cat had gone away. And the season of dog days is like this: it is the time at the end of the summer when as a rule nothing can happen – but if a change does come about, that change remains until dog days are over. Things that are done are not undone and a mistake once made is not corrected.

— Carson McCullers

But remembering don’t come to a man face forward – it corners around sideways.

— Carson McCullers

Have you ever seen any people that afterward you remembered more like a feeling than a picture?

— Carson McCullers

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.

— Carson McCullers

How can the dead be truly dead when they are still walking in my heart?

— Carson McCullers
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