Cold Mountain Quotes

“Inman did not consider himself to be a superstitious person, but he did believe that there is a world invisible to us. He no longer thought of that world as heaven, nor did he still think that we get to go there when we die. Those teachings had been burned away. But he could not abide by a universe composed only of what he could see, especially when it was so frequently foul.”

“This world is in a fever.”

“He had grown so used to seeing death . . . that it seemed no longer dark and mysterious. He feared his heart had been touched by the fire so often he might never make a civilian again.”

“She believed she would erect towers on the ridge marking the south and north points of the sun’s annual swing... Keeping track of such a thing would place a person, would be a way of saying, You are here, in this one station, now. It would be an answer to the question, Where am I?”

“But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. ”

“You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”

“This journey will be the axle of my life.”

“She believed maybe she liked them both better now.”

″...she knew in her heart that nature has a preference for a particular order: parents die, then children die. But it was a harsh design, offering little relief from pain, for being in accord with it means that the fortunate find themselves orphaned.”

“But what Inman did not tell the blind man was that no matter how he tried, the field that night would not leave him but had instead provided him with a recurring dream, one that had visited him over and over during his time in the hospital.”

“But Inman thought all words had some issue, so he walked and said the spell, aiming it out against the world at large, all his enemies. He repeated it over and over to himself as some people, in fear or hope, will say a single prayer endlessly until it burns itself in their thoughts so that they can work or even carry on a conversation with it still running unimpeded...”