Cormac McCarthy on nature

There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed.

I don’t think goodness is something that you learn. If you’re left adrift in the world to learn goodness from it, you would be in trouble.

I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools. So far, I think nature is winning.

Albert Einstein1879–1955

Nature does nothing uselessly.

Aristotle384–322 BCPolitics, Book I, 1253a.8

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.

Baltasar Gracián1601–1658

• Art