Quote #0
Books are made out of books.
Cormac McCarthy
About This Quote
In a 1992 New York Times profile, McCarthy was discussing literary influence and the lineage of novels. He pushed back against the idea of pure originality by stressing that novelists build on earlier novels.
Interpretation
The remark argues that literature is inherently intertextual: writers absorb, transform, and respond to prior writing, so new books are partly constructed from the tradition they inherit rather than created from nothing.
Extended Quotation
“The ugly fact is books are made out of books,” he says. “The novel depends for its life on the novels that have been written.”
Variations
That is the way books are made—out of books.
Most of their books are made out of books or brains.
(for after all their books are made out of books)
Misattributions
- Richard B. Woodward
- Henry Holland
- Paul Valéry
Source
The New York Times (1992-04-19), “Cormac McCarthy’s Venomous Fiction” by Richard B. Woodward.
