The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Quotes

“Next to music, beer was best.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“the way i need you is a loneliness i cannot bear.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“I want - I want - I want - was all that she could think about - but just what this real want was she did not know.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“I´m a stranger in a strange land.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“When a person knows and can't
make the others understand, what does he do?”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“All we can do is go around telling the truth.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“I am not meant to be alone and without you who understands.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“I do not have any home. So why should I be homesick?”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“My advice to you is this. Do not attempt to stand alone....The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“There was hope in him, and soon perhaps the outline of his journey would take form.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“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.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter