Top quotes by Carson McCullers

The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect. Votes: 18

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book. Votes: 16

Nothing is so musical as the sound of pouring bourbon for the first drink on a Sunday morning. Not Bach or Schubert or any of those masters. Votes: 15

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Votes: 13

The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire...driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight! Votes: 10

We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known. Votes: 9

In one of their quarrels, they had begun calling each other Mister. and Misses., and since then they had never made it up enough to change it. Votes: 8

The theme is the theme of humiliation, which is the square root of sin, as opposed to the freedom from humiliation, and love, which is the square root of wonderful. Votes: 8

What are the sources of an illumination? To me, they come after hours of searching and keeping my soul ready. Yet they come in a flash, as a religious phenomenon. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter had such an illumination, beginning my long search for the truth of the story and flashing light into the long two years ahead. Votes: 7

I'm not explaining this right. What happened was this. There were these beautiful feelings and loose little pleasures inside me. And this woman was something like an assembly line for my soul. I run these little pieces of myself through her and I come out complete. Now do you follow me? Votes: 7

We are homesick most for the places we have never known. Votes: 7

the way i need you is a loneliness i cannot bear. Votes: 6

It was the year Frankie thought about the world. And she did not see it as a round school globe, with the countries neat and different-colored. She thought of the world as huge and cracked and looseand turning a thousand miles an hour. Votes: 5

Next to music beer was best. Votes: 5

Doctor Copeland belt old evil anger in him. The words rose inchoately to his throat and he could not speak them. They would listen to the old man. Yet to word the reason they will not attend. Votes: 4

The job wouldn't be just put the summer, but for a long time, as long as she could see ahead. Once they were used to the money coming in it would be impossible to do without again. Votes: 4

Why did he go onward? Why did he not rest here upon the bottom of utmost humiliation and for a while take his content?But he went onward. Votes: 4

There are those who know and those who don't know. And for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who knows. That's the miracle of all time--the fact that these millions know so much but don't know this. Votes: 3

The music left only this bad hurt in her, and a blankness. She could not remember any of the symphony, not even the last few notes. She tried to remember, but no sound at all came to her. Now that it was over there was only her heart like a rabbit and this terrible hurt. Votes: 3

The memories of childhood have a strange shuttling quality, and areas of darkness ring the spaces of light. The memories of childhood are like clear candles in an acre of night, illuminating fixed scenes from surrounding darkness. Votes: 3

justice itself is a chimera, a delusion. Justice is not a flat yardstick, applied in equal measure to an equal situation. Votes: 3

The writer is by nature a dreamer - a conscious dreamer. Votes: 2

The human heart is a lonely hunter-but the search for us southerners is more anguished..... Votes: 2

How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind? Votes: 2

I am not meant to be alone and without you who understands. Votes: 2

A person can't pick up they children and just squeeze them to which-a-way they wants them to be. Votes: 1

For you see, when us people who know run into each other that's an event. It almost never happens. Sometimes we meet each other and neither guesses that the other is one who knows. That's a bad thing. It's happened to me a lot of times. But you see there are so few of us. Votes: 1

They are the we of me. Votes: 1

Sometimes this fellow's music was like little colored pieces of crystal candy, and other times it was the softest, saddest thing she had ever imagined about." Votes: 1

The old bitterness came up in him and he did not have time to cogitate and push it down. Votes: 1

Because of the insolence of all the white race he was afraid to lose his dignity in friendliness. Votes: 0

Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was the symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen. Votes: 0

People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things that no one else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human. Votes: 0

After the first establishment of identity there comes the imperative need to lose this new-found sense of separateness and to belong to something larger and more powerful than the weak, lonely self. The sense of moral isolation is intolerable to us. Votes: 0

The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else. Votes: 0

I got to wear blinders all the time so I won't think sideways or in the past. Votes: 0

That was the best of all. To speak the truth and be attended. Votes: 0

In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone. Votes: 0

Next to music, beer was best. Votes: 0

There is so much truth in children and so little self-consciousness. It always strikes me that they are so capable of losing and finding themselves and also losing and finding those things they feel close to. Votes: 0

I live with the people I create and it has always made my essential loneliness less keen. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

For fear is a primary source of evil. And when the question "Who am I?" recurs and is unanswered, then fear and frustration project a negative attitude. The bewildered soul can answer only: "Since I do not understand 'Who I am,' I only know what I am not." The corollary of this emotional incertitude is snobbism, intolerance and racial hate. The xenophobic individual can only reject and destroy, as the xenophobic nation inevitably makes war. Votes: 0

Falling in love is the easiest thing in the world. It's standing in love that matters. Votes: 0

Love is a joint experience between two persons -- but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. Votes: 0

This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. This music was her—the real plain her...This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen... Now that it was over there was only her heart beating like a rabbit and this terrible hurt. Votes: 0

A writer soon discovers he has no single identity but lives the lives of all the people he creates and his weathers are independent of the actual day around him. I live with the people I create and it has always made my essential loneliness less keen. Votes: 0

I´m a stranger in a strange land. Votes: 0

But you haven't never loved God nor even nair person. You hard and tough as cowhide. But just the same I knows you. This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don't love and don't have peace. And then some day you going to bust loose and be ruined. Votes: 0

I have never gone to a doctor in my adult life, feeling instinctively that doctors meant either cutting or, just as bad, diet. Votes: 0

I think we look for the differences in people because it makes us less lonely. Votes: 0

There is no stillness like the quiet of the first cold nights in the fall. Votes: 0

The thinking mind is best controlled by the imagination. Votes: 0

The curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain. Votes: 0

She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram fall of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house. Votes: 0

It was like she was cheated. Only nobody had cheated her. So there was nobody to take it out on. However, just the same she had that feeling. Cheated. Votes: 0

I have more to say than Hemingway, and God knows, I say it better than Faulkner. Votes: 0

Doctors, by God; washing their hands, looking out windows, fiddling with dreadful things while you are stretched out on a table or half undressed on a chair. Votes: 0

The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome. Votes: 0

Writing, for me, is a search for God. Votes: 0

Southerners are the more lonely and spiritually estranged, I think, because we have lived so long in an artificial social system that we insisted was natural and right and just - when all along we knew it wasn't. Votes: 0

... and we are not alone in this slavery. there are millions of others throughout the world, of all colors and races and creeds. this we must remember. there are many of our people who hate the poor of the white race, and they hate us. the people in this town living by the river who work in the mills. people who are almost as much in need as we are ourselves. this hatred is a great evil, and no good can ever come from it... the injustice of need must bring us all together and not separate us. we must remember that we all make the things of this earth of value because of labor. Votes: 0

Jesus would be framed and in jail if he was living today. Votes: 0

But look what the Church has done to Jesus during the last two thousand years. What they have made of Him. How they have turned every word He spoke for their own vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if he was living today. Votes: 0

It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see. Votes: 0

For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and valor. Of the endless fluid passage of the humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who - one word- love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him, he felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Votes: 0

The writer must hew the phantom rock. Votes: 0

The dimensions of a work of art are seldom realized by the author until the work is accomplished. It is like a flowering dream. Ideas grow, budding silently, and there are a thousand illuminations coming day by day as the work progresses. A seed grows in writing as in nature. The seed of the idea is developed by both labor and the unconscious, and the struggle that goes on between them. Votes: 0

The seed of the idea is developed by both labor and the unconscious, and the struggle that goes on between them. Votes: 0

Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them. Votes: 0

The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow. Votes: 0

Imagination takes humility, love and great courage. Votes: 0

The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone. Votes: 0

There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Votes: 0

She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone. Votes: 0

I see a green tree. And to me it is green. And you would call the tree green also. And we would agree on this. But is the colour you see as green the same colour I see as green? Votes: 0

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known. Votes: 0

Sunday afternoons are the longest afternoons of all ... Votes: 0

Death is the great gamer with a sleeve of tricks. Votes: 0

To know who you are, you have to have a place to come from. Votes: 0

Don't you loathe it when doctors use the word 'we' when it applies only and solely to yourself? Votes: 0

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. Votes: 0

People, unless they are nilly-willy or very sick, cannot be taken into the hands and be changed overnight into somthing more worth-while and profitable. Votes: 0

Some men are heroes by nature in that they will give all that is in them without regard to the effort or to the personal returns. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Coming down was the hardest part of any climbing. Votes: 0

You don't know what it is to store up a lot of details and then come upon something real. Votes: 0

Love is the main generator of all good writing... Love, passion, compassion, are all welded together. Votes: 0

The world is certainty a sudden place. Votes: 0

This fear is one of the horrors of an author's life. Where does work come from? What chance, what small episode will start the chain of creation? I once wrote a story about a writer who could not write anymore, and my friend Tennessee Williams said, 'How could you dare write that story, it's the most frightening work I have ever read.' I was pretty well sunk while I was writing it. Votes: 0

Listen,” F. Jasmine said. “What I’ve been trying to say is this. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each other, and touch each other, and stay together year in and year out in the same room. Yet always I am I, and you are you. And I can’t ever be anything else but me, and you can ever be anything else but you. Have you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange? Votes: 0

Owing to the fact he was a mute they were able to give him all the qualities they wanted him to have. Votes: 0

It is music that causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright. Votes: 0

Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone. Votes: 0

But no value has been put on human life; it is given to us free and taken without being paid for. What is it worth? If you look around, at times the value may seem to be little or nothing at all. Often after you have sweated and tried and things are not better for you, there comes a feeling deep down in the soul that you are not worth much. Votes: 0

The value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself. Votes: 0

A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp. Votes: 0

In the face of brutality I was prudent. Before injustice I held my peace. I sacrificed the things in hand for the good of they hypothetical whole. I believed in the tongue instead of the fist. As an armor against oppression I taught patience and faith in the human soul I know now how wrong I was. I have been a traitor to myself and to my people. All that is not. Now is the time to act and to act quickly. Fight cunning with cunning and might with might Votes: 0

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things. Votes: 0

The writer by nature of his profession is a dreamer and a conscious dreamer. He must imagine, and imagination takes humility, love and great courage. How can you create a character without live and the struggle that goes with love? Votes: 0

We wander, question. But the answer waits in each separate heart - the answer of our own identity and the way by which we can master loneliness and feel that at last we belong. Votes: 0

I want - I want - I want - was all that she could think about - but just what this real want was she did not know. Votes: 0

Wherever you look there’s meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow can’t live without giving his passive acceptance to meanness. Somebody wears his tail to a frazzle for every mouthful we eat and every stitch we wear—and nobody seems to know. Everybody is blind, dumb, and blunt-headed—stupid and mean. Votes: 0

And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many. Votes: 0

But all the time-no matter what she was doing-there was music. Votes: 0

Day and night she had drudged and struggled and thrown her soul into her work, and there was not much of her left over for anything else. Being human, she suffered from this lack and did what she could to make up for it. If she passed the evening bent over a table in the library and later declared that she had spent that time playing cards, it was as though she had managed to do both those things. Through the lies, she lived vicariously. The lies doubled the little of her existence that was left over from work and augmented the little rag end of her personal life. Votes: 0

Sometimes this fellow's music was like little colored pieces of crystal candy, and other times it was the softest, saddest thing she had ever imagined about. Votes: 0

When a person knows and can't make the others understand, what does he do? Votes: 0

All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease. Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers. Votes: 0

I must go home periodically to renew my sense of horror. Votes: 0

We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty and to spare for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great, true principle - the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of that start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars - and hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat. Votes: 0

I meditated on love and reasoned it out. I realized what is wrong with us. Men fall in love for the first time. And what do they fall in love with? ...They fall in love with a woman. They start at the wrong end of love. They begin at the climax. Can you wonder it is so miserable? Do you know how men should love? A tree. A rock. A cloud. Votes: 0

There are all these people here I don't know by sight or by name. And we pass alongside each other and don't have any connection. And they don't know me and I don't know them. And now I'm leaving town and there are all these people I will never know. Votes: 0

She stood in front of the mirror a long time, and finally decided she either looked like a sap or else she looked very beautiful. One or the other. Votes: 0

Her face felt like it was scattered in pieces and she could not keep it straight. The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want--I want--I want--was all that she could think about--but just what this real want was she did no know. Votes: 0

Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons--throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to. Votes: 0

Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty. Votes: 0

There was hope in him, and soon perhaps the outline of his journey would take form. Votes: 0

I do not have any home. So why should I be homesick? Votes: 0

It was like they waited to tell each other things that had never been told before. What she had to say was terrible and afraid. But what he would tell her was so true that it would make everything all right. Maybe it was a thing that could not be spoken with words or writing. Maybe he would have to let her understand this in a different way. That was the feeling she had with him. Votes: 0

His own life seemed so solitary, a fragile column supporting nothing amidst the wreckage of the years. Votes: 0

while time, the endless idiot, runs screaming around the world Votes: 0

I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree. Votes: 0

Comparing the Brooklyn that I know with Manhattan is like comparing a comfortable and complacent duenna to her more brilliant and neurotic sister. Votes: 0

Passion is more important than justice. Votes: 0

All we can do is go around telling the truth. Votes: 0