Цитаты из книги Cold Mountain

Смерть стала настолько привычной, что если постоянно отдавать себе отчет в ней, то можно было бы сойти с ума. Он жил так, что для него стало обыденным видеть смерть; он ходил среди мертвецов, спал среди них, спокойно причислял себя к полумертвым, так что смерть уже не казалась ему темной и таинственной.

Этот мир в лихорадке.

Это была война в ее самой древней форме, как если бы сотни людей завели в пещеру и отдали им приказ убивать друг друга.

В узком кружке дамских гостиных на званых обедах, где те, кто уже состоял в браке, и те, кто еще находился в поисках супруга, обменивались колкими замечаниями, она была склонна высказываться в том духе, что ей так смертельно скучно с поклонниками — все их интересы ограничены делами, охотой и лошадьми, — что она чувствует необходимость повесить табличку при входе в дом: «Джентльменам вход воспрещен».

This would do, Ada thought, as she lay there. The abandoned trail through mountains and rivers. Not a soul around. The stone shelter warm and dry and strange as an elfin lodge. Though others might view it as an utterly bare haven, it matched her needs so much that she could just move in and live there.

I've been coming to you on a hard road and I'm not letting you go.

He floated along thinking he would like to love the world as it was, and he felt a great deal of accomplishment for the occasions when he did, since the other was so easy. Hate took no effort other than to look about. It was a weakness, he acknowledged, to be of such a mind that all around him had to lie fair for him call it satisfactory.

Tired as he was, though, Inman had a hard time getting to sleep. Stobrod snored and muttered snatches of the chorus to an idiotic fiddle tune, which--as best Inman could tell--was no more than this: The higher up the monkey climbed, the greater he showed his ya-ta-dada-la-ta-di-da. Inman had heard men say all kinds of things when they were submerged in the dark of a profound wound, everything from prayers to curses. But this took the prize for foolery.

The main thing, Ruby said, was not to get ahead of yourself. Go at a rhythm that could be sustained on and on. Do just as much as you could do and still be able to get up and do again tomorrow. No more, and no less.

"The comeliest order on earth is but a heap of random sweepings".

During a pause in the play, Swimmer had looked out at the landforms and said he believed Cold Mountain to be the chief mountain of the world. Inman asked how he knew that to be true, and Swimmer had swept his hand across the horizon to where Cold Mountain stood and said, Do you see a bigger'n?

There in the highlands, clear weather held for much of the time. The air lacked its usual haze, and the view stretched on and on across rows of blue mountains, each paler than the last until the final ranks were indistinguishable from sky. It was as if all the world might be composed of nothing but valley and ridge.

Cold Mountain, all its ridges and coves and watercourses. Pigeon River, Little East Fork, Sorrell Cove, Deep Gap, Fire Scald Ridge. He knew their names and said them to himself like the words of spells and incantations to ward off the things one fears most.