But this man had set down ...

But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that? What was it that he had faith in? It wasn\'t that nothin\' would change. Which is what you might think, I suppose. He had to know better\'n that. I\'ve thought about it a good deal. . . And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I don\'t have no intentions of carvin\' a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise. I think that\'s what I would like most of all.
But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that? What was it that he had faith in? It wasn't that nothin' would change. Which is what you might think, I suppose. He had to know better'n that. I've thought about it a good deal. . . And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I don't have no intentions of carvin' a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise. I think that's what I would like most of all.
 Cormac McCarthy

Quotes from the same author

The wind sounded of Mother Earth's forsaken and abandoned cries.
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 Cormac McCarthy
See the hand that nursed the serpent. The fine hasped pipes of her fingerbones. The skin bewenned and speckled. The veins are milkblue and bulby. A thin gold ring set with diamonds. That raised the once child's heart of her to agonies of passion before I was. Here is the anguish of mortality. Hopes wrecked, love sundered. See the mother sorrowing. How everything that I was warned of's come to pass.
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 Cormac McCarthy
How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?
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 Cormac McCarthy
It was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.
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 Cormac McCarthy
Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily.
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 Cormac McCarthy