No Country for Old Men Philosophical Viewpoints Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from No Country for Old Men.

Quote #1

Gas station attendant: I didn't put nothing up.

Chigurh: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life. You just didn't know it.

Here, Anton Chigurh is talking to the gas station attendant, who says he didn't "put nothing up," i.e. didn't bet anything. Not the way Chigurh looks at it. He's convinced that human beings risk their lives every second of every day just by being alive. After all, every second you live is a second that you could possibly die. Gee, that's cheerful.

Quote #2

"Anywhere not in your pocket. Or it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is."

Wait, hang up—we're confused. On the one hand, the coin Chigurh flips has some sort of special relationship with fate. On the other hand, it's just a regular coin like any other. So which is it? For Chigurh, they're somehow one and the same.

Quote #3

"Yeah, he's a psychopathic killer, but so what? There's plenty of them around."

Carson Wells has the most laid-back philosophy of anyone in this movie. For him, there's nothing special about Anton Chigurh. He's just a particularly dangerous psycho killer. But who cares? Those people are a dime a dozen in Wells's world, and if one doesn't get you, then another one will.