What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the struggle between reality and the subconscious, conveying how fearful thoughts can haunt us at night.
Cormac McCarthy's quote illustrates the inner turmoil that can arise when experiences or fears from reality seep into our dreams. It highlights the deep-seated anxieties that can manifest during the night, emphasizing the psychological effects of unresolved issues and the haunting nature of our fears, which can be more pronounced in the darkness of night when one's mind lacks distraction.
In practice
During a discussion about mental health, one might say, 'As Cormac McCarthy noted, what he could bear in the waking world he could not by night...'
Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung.
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.
The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.
Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.
He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.
He'd half meant to speak but those eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.
I've been called a recluse. There's definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone.
Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality.
At least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe.
Do no harmful actions, do not become attached to the cycle of death and rebirth, show kindness, respect the old and have compassion for the young, do not have a heart that rejects or a heart that covets and have no worry or sadness in your heart. This is what is called enlightenment. Do not seek it elsewhere.
He knows what it's like to strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then be heard no more.
There is an increasing awareness of the interrelatedness of things. We are becoming less prone to accept an immediate solution without questioning its larger implications.
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