# The Road **Covers**:: **Source**:: [[The Road by Cormac McCarthy]] **Creator**:: [[Cormac McCarthy]] # Highlights ##### ^283227484 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=50 The boy being God is a main theme of this book. The boy does not posses any godlike features except the most important one, the ability to fuel belief. Without the boy, the man would not be able to believe that there are people out there, that those people might be worth saving, and that there is a reason for their suffering. ###### ^283227484q He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke. ^283227484 ##### ^283227485 highlight_tags:: [[love]], [[favorite]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=104 ###### ^283227485q What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too. So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you. Okay. ^283227485 ##### ^283227486 highlight_tags:: [[favorite]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=111 ###### ^283227486q Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered. Oh God. ^283227486 ##### ^283227487 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=136 ###### ^283227487q They were days fording that cauterized terrain. ^283227487 ##### ^283227488 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=220 ###### ^283227488q It’s because I wont ever get to drink another one, isnt it? Ever’s a long time. Okay, the boy said. ^283227488 ##### ^283227489 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=316 ###### ^283227489q You promised not to do that, the boy said. What? You know what, Papa. He poured the hot water back into the pan and took the boy’s cup and poured some of the cocoa into his own and then handed it back. I have to watch you all the time, the boy said. I know. If you break little promises you’ll break big ones. That’s what you said. I know. But I wont. ^283227489 ##### ^283957205 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=516 ###### ^283957205q Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you wont face it. You’d rather wait for it to happen. But I cant. I cant. ^283957205 ##### ^283957206 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=527 ###### ^283957206q The one thing I can tell you is that you wont survive for yourself. I know because I would never have come this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart. ^283957206 ##### ^283957207 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=537 The mother did not try to shield the boy from her madness ###### ^283957207q The hundred nights they’d sat up debating the pros and cons of self destruction with the earnestness of philosophers chained to a madhouse wall. In the morning the boy said nothing at all and when they were packed and ready to set out upon the road he turned and looked back at their campsite and he said: She’s gone isn’t she? And he said: Yes, she is. ^283957207 ##### ^283957208 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=540 The man observing the nature of the boy after his mother killed herself. ###### ^283957208q Always so deliberate, hardly surprised by the most outlandish advents. A creation perfectly evolved to meet its own end. ^283957208 ##### ^283957209 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=554 The man isn't refering to the boy as god, but the author does write it in such a way that it almost sees that way ###### ^283957209q God, he whispered. He reached and shook the boy, keeping his eyes on the road. ^283957209 ##### ^285352243 highlight_tags:: [[favorite]], [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=681 ###### ^285352243q This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man’s brains out of his hair. That is my job. ^285352243 ##### ^285352244 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=683 ###### ^285352244q The boy sat tottering. The man watched him that he not topple into the flames. He kicked holes in the sand for the boy’s hips and shoulders where he would sleep and he sat holding him while he tousled his hair before the fire to dry it. All of this like some ancient anointing. So be it. Evoke the forms. Where you’ve nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them. ^285352244 ##### ^285369220 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=784 ###### ^285369220q What if that little boy doesnt have anybody to take care of him? he said. What if he doesnt have a papa? ^285369220 ##### ^285369221 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=788 ###### ^285369221q I’m afraid for that little boy. ^285369221 ##### ^285369222 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=791 ###### ^285369222q He was crying again. What about the little boy? he sobbed. What about the little boy? ^285369222 ##### ^285427486 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=802 ###### ^285427486q That is the dog he remembers. He doesnt remember any little boys. ^285427486 ##### ^288838067 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=826 ###### ^288838067q He’d seen it all before. Shapes of dried blood in the stubble grass and gray coils of viscera where the slain had been field-dressed and hauled away. The wall beyond held a frieze of human heads, all faced alike, dried and caved with their taut grins and shrunken eyes. They wore gold rings in their leather ears and in the wind their sparse and ratty hair twisted about on their skulls. The teeth in their sockets like dental molds, the crude tattoos etched in some homebrewed woad faded in the beggared sunlight. Spiders, swords, targets. A dragon. Runic slogans, creeds misspelled. Old scars with old motifs stitched along their borders. The heads not truncheoned shapeless had been flayed of their skins and the raw skulls painted and signed across the forehead in a scrawl and one white bone skull had the plate sutures etched carefully in ink like a blueprint for assembly. He looked back at the boy. ^288838067 ##### ^288838068 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000OI0G1Q&location=867 ###### ^288838068q If we were going to die would you tell me? I dont know. We’re not going to die. ^288838068