How we cite our quotes:
Quote #4
"[God] speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things" (9.50).
The judge doesn't buy the Biblical idea that the world is only a few thousand years old. He's convinced that the world is millions of years old, which is something the fossil record supports. What's interesting is that despite this scientific attitude, he still suggests there's a God.
Quote #5
"The bear had carried off their kinsman like some fabled storybook beast and the land had swallowed them up beyond all ransom or reprieve" (11.3).
Don't worry, it's not just humans who look brutal and terrible in this book. There are also horses that bite other horses and bears that eat people the first chance they get. In case you didn't get it earlier, McCarthy paints a brutal picture of ALL things.
Quote #6
"In the days to come they would ride up through a country where the rocks would cook the flesh from your hand and where other than rocks nothing was" (11.6).
We've mentioned how the animals in Blood Meridian are just as vicious as the humans, but in this scene, it sounds like even the rocks are violent in the way they reflect the sun and heat up so much they'll burn your flesh. What's a person got to do to find an oasis in all of this horrible scenery? In McCarthy's world, the oasis would probably be full of piranhas anyway…