'Do you plot everything out?'

• natural talent, natural journey
• 'lonesome sound'- inspiration taken from world around him and imagination
• 'waste'- world has gone to waste, devastation, oppressive state 
• 'my little boy'- character of boy may have been influenced by his own son, personal, absolute
• 'the book sort of wrote itself'- self explanatory, accustomed 
• 'subconscious' didn't need thinking about, hidden within him, not carefully plotted as it may appear
• mesmerizing infrastructure came naturally- shocked

'I had no idea where it was going. I had no idea where it was going to end'

• no solid plan to abide by
• mystery to McCarthy as well as reader throughout
• may explain ending choice- 'cop out' in some opinions
• spontaneity 
• impulsive
• impressive technique
• seemingly intricately planned book was not actually planned
• writing style is magnificent to lead us to this conclusion

'It's a pretty simple, straightforward story I like to think.'

• simple with climatic events
• highlights power of human emotions- sculpt this book as being much more when in reality it is a simple plot, attachment, tragedy, trauma

'A lot of the things that the kid says are things that John said'

• personal influences on character of the 'boy'
• 'said' past tense, almost as if John has passed away- grown up older, more wiser, horrors of the world, childlike naivety vanished 
• attachment

'It's really more important to be good than it is to be smart'

• father= smart
• boy= 'good' morally
• may infer the man is too smart, pessimist, mystery surrounding man- is he a good guy, why are they not in a commune etc etc
• conflicting characters
•  contrasting of smartness and goodness- if man wasn't so smart would they have been more successful, survival
• why was he so smart? almost spy like. 
• WAS HE A 'BAD GUY' 
• reinforcing way McCarthy depicts the man
• McCarthy does not feel this smartness is important

'I just sat there in bed and held them'

• do not appreciate what we have
• large impact on readers, realization, appreciation for what we have got

'absolute minimum' 'no need to blot the page with little weird marks' 'if you write properly, you shouldn't have to punctuate'

•  intricate sentence structures
• The Road is 'proper' writing style
• 'simple declarative sentences' sums up style of the road, McCarthy was writing 'properly'