Quotes from The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Popular quotes

“And now, because of a song, Vimes, a simple piece of music, Vimes, soft as a breath, stranger than a mountain, some very powerful states have agreed to work together to heal the problems of another autonomous state and, almost as collateral, turn some animals into people at a stroke.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff

“I don’t belong here, David. Not yet. Maybe someday. If-- when Yasmine becomes Queen, she’ll need me, but for now, what Avalon really needs is someone in the human world, just like Jamison said. Someone to remind them how great humans really are. How great you really are,’ She added. ‘And I intend to do just that.’
‘Laurel?’
There was an edge of desperation in his voice, a deep sorrow she knew she had put there. ‘Yeah?’
He was quiet for a long time and Laurel wondered if he had changed his mind when he blurted, ‘We could have made it. If it hadn’t been for... for him, we would have had the real thing. Our whole lives. I truely believe that.’
Laurel smiled sadly. ‘Me too.’ She threw herself into David’s arms, pressing her cheek to his warm chest, the same way she’d hugged him countless times before. But there was something more in it, this time, as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. And she knew, despite the fact that she would see him everyday from now through graduation, that this was goodbye.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘For everything.’
A movement caught the corner of her eye; he was fat away, but she knew him in an instant. Tamani was struggling up the pathway on his own, hardly able to put one foot in front of the other. Even as she watched he stumbled and barely caught himself.
Laurel gasped and was on her feet in an instant. ‘I have to help him,’ she said.
David met her eyes and held her gaze for several seconds before he looked down and nodded. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘He needs you.’
‘David?’ Laurel said. ‘Sometimes...’ she tried to remember how Chelsea had explained it to her once. ‘Sometimes we’re busy looking at one thing, one... person... that we can’t see anything else. Maybe-- maybe it’s time for you to open your eyes and look around.’
That message delivered, Laurel whirled and headed for Tamani without a backward glance.

Chapter 27
‘Tamani!’ Laurel called, running to him.
He looked up and for a second, Laurel saw joy in his eyes. But then darkness clouded his expression. He blinked and looked down at the ground, running his fingers through his hair almost nervously.
Laurel tucked herself underneath his good arm, wanting to chide him for doing so much. Beneath her fingertips Laurel could feel no trace of Klea’s virulent toxin, which was encouraging, but his wounds were grevious on their own. ‘Are you alright?’
He shook hes head and his eyes looked haunted in a way she had never seen before. Yesterday she had been peripherally aware that he was pushing his emotions aside to accomplish the tasks before him. But here, with no one around bur Laurel, with no lives to save, he had let his defenses fo and allowed himself to really feel. And it showed. ‘No,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘I’m not all right. And I don’t think I’m going to be alright for a long time. But I’ll live,’ he added after a brief pause.
‘Sit,’ Laurel said pulling him off the path to a patch of grass where a larege pine shaded them from not only the rising sun, but also from prying eyes. For just a moment, she wanted him all to herself. ’Where’s Chelsea?’
‘She’ll be here soon,’ he said wearily.
‘Where were you?’ She asked.
He was silent for a moment. ‘Shar’s house,’ he finally finally said, his voice cracking.
‘Oh, Tam,’ Laurel breathed, her hands gripping his shoulders.
‘It was his last request,’ Tamani said, one silent tear tracing down his face for an instant before he broke her gaze and rubbed it with his sleeve.
Laurel wanted to wrap her arms around him, to offer her shoulder for him to cry on, to soothe away those terrible lines on his forehead, but she didn’t know where to begin. ‘Tamani, what’s going on?’
Tamani swallowed, then shook his head. ‘I’ll get you back to California-- you’ll see. You, Chelsea, and David.’
‘But--’
‘But I’m not coming with you.’
‘You-- you have to,’ Laurel said, but Tamani was shaking his head.”
― Aprilynne Pike, quote from Destined

“I feel like I’m broken—like I don’t fit together anymore. Like there’s no more room for me in the world or something. Like I’ve overstayed my welcome here on Earth, and everyone’s trying to give me hints about that constantly. Like I should just check out.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock

“For a better part of a decade, he had been outside society, distanced in mind and spirit if not in body. But now, for the first time since Centeral America, Jack Twist had the need, the desire, and ability to reach out to society around him, to make friends.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Strangers

“Can I touch you?”
His lashes closed, resting on the tops of his tanned, sculpted cheeks as his smile grew broad. “You don’t have to ask.” I reached out immediately but paused within inches of contact. He must’ve sensed my hesitation because he reopened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
I swallowed, utterly overwhelmed. “I don’t know where to start.”
Mason’s gaze warmed . He wrapped strong warm fingers around my wrist and drew my palm forward, leading me where he wanted my hand to follow. When he set it on the center of his chest, right over his heart and pressed my flesh to his as if fingerprinting my soul to his. I blinked back gratified tears.
“Start here. No one’s ever touched me here before.”
― Linda Kage, quote from Price of a Kiss

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