The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

by Cormac McCarthy

Yeah. You always did think the worst. And was seldom disappointed.

think that my desire to remain totally fucking ignorant about shit that will only get me in trouble is both deep and abiding. I’m going to say that it is just damn near a religion.

What the Squire has never understood is that forgiveness has a time line. While it’s never too late for revenge.

Every worldline is discrete and the caesura ford a void that is bottomless. Every step traverses death.

He thought that God’s goodness appeared in strange places. Dont close your eyes.

And he said I’ll tell you what I think. I wouldnt get out of the electric chair to get in it.

But the truth is I’ve few demands. Think about it. Stay slightly ahead of the curve. Try to keep the more common miseries at bay. Dont look luck in the eye. Cheers.

Maybe you’re just a hoarder of misery. Waiting for the market to rise.

Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.

As for myself again if I cant be decorum’s sworn enemy while savoring its fruits I simply see no place for me at all.

Real trouble doesnt begin in a society until boredom has become its most general feature. Boredom will drive even quietminded people down paths they’d never imagined.

You said once that a moment in time was a contradiction since there could be no moveless thing. That time could not be constricted into a brevity that contradicts its own definition. I said that. Yes. You also suggested that time might be incremental rather than linear. That the notion of the endlessly divisible in the world was attended by certain problems.

But I will tell you Squire that having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.

Western nodded. He pushed back the chair and rose. Well. 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. I’ll see you.

I’d have been your shadowlane, the keeper of that house alone wherein your soul is safe.

Warned about what? About you, Tuliptits. What do you get out of calling me names? Names are important. They set the parameters for the rules of engagement. The origin of language is in the single sound that designates the other person. Before you do something to them.

Too soon old and too late smart.

You think I’m naive. I dont think you’re naive. You are naive. My understanding of it is not what makes it so.

When smart people do dumb things it’s usually due to one of two things. The two things are greed and fear. They want something they’re not supposed to have or they’ve done something they werent supposed to do. In either case they’ve usually fastened on to a set of beliefs that are supportive of their state of mind but at odds with reality. It has become more important to them to believe than to know.

I dont know. Just get me out of here. This is not a favorable environment.

She’s fun and sexy but she is distinctly not low maintenance and I am growing weary, Squire, and unlikely to become less so as we lurch forward.

I have to go. Okay. Are you all right? No. Are you? No. But we’re on reduced expectations. That helps.

Energy increases equally with mass but it increases with the square of the speed.

I’ve got some money. Well. In that case the position you’ve taken looks more or less jackassical.

He commented to a mutual friend that I was going to find myself consigned to such deeps of the netherworld that you couldnt find me with an asbestos bloodhound.

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

Mercy is the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and there is mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.