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I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree.

Carson McCullers

She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram fall of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Cram Fall Go House Kind Loud Music Out People Place Private Sing Some Too Wish
Love is the bridge that leads from the I sense to the We, and there is a paradox about personal love.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Bridge Lead Love Paradox Personal Sense
When a person knows and can’t make the others understand, what does he do?
CARSON MCCULLERS

Do Does Know Make Other Person Understand
Maybe it was a thing that could not be spoken with words or writing. Maybe he would have to let her understand this in a different way. That was the feeling she had with him.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Fel Different Maybe Thing Understanding Way Word Write
This fear is one of the horrors of an author’s life. Where does work come from? What chance, what small episode will start the chain of creation?
CARSON MCCULLERS

Author Chain Come Creation Episode Fear From Chance Horror Life One Small Start Work
Coming down was the hardest part of any climbing.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Any Climb Come Down Hardest Part
There’s nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Address Aware Book Existence Human Improvision Make Nothing Song Unfinish
The writer must hew the phantom rock.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Hew Must Phantom Rock Writer
But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Children Delicate Heart Organ Small
It was like they waited to tell each other things that had never been told before. What she had to say was terrible and afraid. But what he would tell her was so true that it would make everything all right.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Been Before Each never Other Thing Walk
The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Brave Cause Experience Lover Only Pain Possible Relation
Can you wonder it is so miserable? Do you know how men should love? A tree. A rock. A cloud.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Cloud Men Miserable Rock Should Tree Wonder
But no value has been put on human life; it is given to us free and taken without being paid for. What is it worth?
CARSON MCCULLERS

Being Free Given Human Life Pay Put Value Without Worth
All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease. Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers.
CARSON MCCULLERS

All Country Loneliest Lonely Men Seem Sometimes
The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Child Heart Nody Ordinary Peach Seed Shrink Swell Thing Until
The memories of childhood have a strange shuttling quality, and areas of darkness ring the spaces of light.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Area Childhood Darkness Light Memories Shut Space Stranger
Next to music beer was best.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Beer Best Music Next
This music was her-the real plain her…This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Arm Around Hard Leg Music Salt She Very
The writer is by nature a dreamer – a conscious dreamer.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Conscious Dream Dreamer Nature Write
I think we look for the differences in people because it makes us less lonely.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Difference Less Lonely Look Make People Think
The writer by nature of his profession is a dreamer and a conscious dreamer. He must imagine, and imagination takes humility, love and great courage. How can you create a character without live and the struggle that goes with love?
CARSON MCCULLERS

Conscious Courage Dreamer Great Humility Imagine Love Must Nature Profession Writer
She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Afraid Go Made Minute See She Stand Suddenly These Thing Wonder World
The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen… Now that it was over there was only her heart beating like a rabbit and this terrible hurt.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Beat Enough Hurt Listen Rabbit Symphony Terrible Whole World
I have never gone to a doctor in my adult life, feeling instinctively that doctors meant either cutting or, just as bad, diet.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Adult Bad Cut Diet Doctor Either Feel Gone Instinctively Just Meant
In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Broad Came Face Most Peace Seen Sorrowful Very Wise
I meditated on love and reasoned it out. I realized what is wrong with us. Men fall in love for the first time. And what do they fall in love with? …They fall in love with a woman. They start at the wrong end of love. They begin at the climax.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Fall First Love Meditate Men Realize Reason Start With Women Wrong
I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree.
CARSON MCCULLERS

Always Cat Climb Tree Wrong

I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree.

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I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree.

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