The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

by Cormac McCarthy

What if I was to tell you stuff I’m not supposed to tell you? Not interested. Stuff you really would like to know. You dont know anything. You just make things up. Yeah. But some of it’s pretty cool.

You’re in my room. So are you. That’s why we’re here. What room did you think we should be in? If

To the seasoned traveler a destination is at best a rumor.

When you carry a child in your arms it will turn its head to see where it’s going. Not sure why. It’s going there anyway. You just need to grab your best hold, that’s all.

You think the boat’s all right? I think so. They dont steal boats down here. They just steal everything else. It’s a point of honor with them. Not stealing boats? No. Stealing everything else.

An outlier such as yourself always raises again the question as to where this ship is headed and why. Is there a common denominator to existence? Core questions can make you look stupid. Are you with me? Sure. Good girl. Where was I? Looking stupid.

I’ve heard of looking a gift horse in the mouth but not of whacking him in the teeth with a shovel.

You will never know what the world is made of. The only thing that’s certain is that it’s not made of the world. As you close upon some mathematical description of reality you cant help but lose what is being described.

You’re a quiet one, she said. I know. I’ve got a lot to be quiet about.

I’m Doctor Sussman. Why are you by yourself? I’m not by myself. I’m schizophrenic. Are you going to shave my head? No. We’re not. Are you the one who’s going to fry me? No one’s going to fry you. Do you have any questions? Do you have a fire extinguisher handy? The doctor tilted her head and studied her. I suppose. Why? In case my hair catches fire. Your hair’s not going to catch fire. Then what’s the fire extinguisher for? You’re making a joke. Yeah. Sort of.

Again, I’ve encountered no greater mystery in life than myself. In a just society I’d be warehoused somewhere. But of course what really threatens the scofflaw is not the just society but the decaying one. It is here that he finds himself becoming slowly indistinguishable from the citizenry.

Feynman once said that we were now discovering the fundamental laws of nature and that day will never come again. Feynman is a bright guy but I think that’s a somewhat questionable thing to say. Should science by some miracle forge on into the future it will uncover not only new laws of nature but new natures to have laws about.

Most physicists have neither the talent nor the balls to take on the really hard problems. But even sorting out the significant problem from among the thousands is a talent not thick on the ground.

In my experience people who say no matter what seldom know what what might turn out to be. They dont know how bad what might get.

You have to believe that there is good in the world. I’m goin to say that you have to believe that the work of your hands will bring it into your life. You may be wrong, but if you dont believe that then you will not have a life. You may call it one. But it wont be one.

Dont be afraid for me, she had written. When has death ever harmed anyone?

Odd the way the world is. How you can have just about anything except what you want.

It’s just that sometimes I think I would have found my life pretty funny if I hadnt had to live it.

What if the purpose of human charity wasnt to protect the weak—which seems pretty anti-Darwinian anyway—but to preserve the mad? Dont they get special treatment in most primitive societies?

Are you all right? No. Are you? No. But we’re on reduced expectations. That helps.

Wherever you debark was the train’s destination all along.

Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice.

Sheddan once said that evil has no alternate plan. It is simply incapable of assuming failure.

Unusual weather. Lightning thin and quick. The inland sea. Cradle of the west. A frail candle tottering in the darkness. All of history a rehearsal for its own extinction.

Fathers are always forgiven. In the end they are forgiven. Had it been women who dragged the world through these horrors there would be a bounty on them.

A calamity can be erased by no amount of good. It can only be erased by a worse calamity.

I suppose in the end what we have to offer is only what we’ve lost. It’s not that I love paradoxes. It’s just that they’ve increasingly come to seem the last factual reality. I suppose that’s hardly a novel observation.

You called me Beelzebubba. I called you what? Beelzebubba. You dont remember. I remember. You were not amused. No. A fake God and you shrug your shoulders. But a fake Satan can only be laughable. And then there’s the implied bumpkinhood.

When we and all our works are gone together with every memory of them and every machine in which such memory could be encoded and stored and the earth is not even a cinder, for whom then will this be a tragedy? Where would such a being be found? And by whom?

I’m compelled to say that I’ve always grudgingly admired the way in which you carried bereavement to such high station. The elevation of grief to a status transcending that which it sorrows. No, Squire. Hear me out. It’s the idea of loss. It subsumes the class of all possible lost things. It’s our primal fear, and you get to assign to it what you will. It doesnt invade your life. It was always there. Awaiting your indulgence. Awaiting your concession. And still I feel I sold you short. How to sort your tale from out the commons. It must surely be true that there is no such collective domain of joy as there is of sorrow. You cant be sure that another man’s happiness resembles your own. But where the collective of pain is concerned there can be little doubt at all.

To prepare for any struggle is largely a work of unburdening oneself. If you carry your past into battle you are riding to your death. Austerity lifts the heart and focuses the vision. Travel light.

People want the world to be just. But the world is silent on this subject. To win a war or a revolution does not validate the cause.