Raymond Carver Quotes - Page 3

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• Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read. Fought against it for a minute. Then looked out the window at the rain. And gave over. Put myself entirely in the keep of this rainy morning. Would I live my life over again? Make the same unforgivable mistakes? Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

  Raymond Carver

  Morning, Mistake, Lying

  Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.135, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the first one to admit it.

  Raymond Carver

  Memories, Mean, Thinking

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories”, p.162, Vintage

  13 Copy quote

• When a reader finishes a wonderful story and lays it aside, he should have to pause for a minute and collect himself.

  Raymond Carver

  Should Have, Stories, Wonderful

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose”, p.229, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• There is no God, and conversation is a dying art.

  Raymond Carver

  Art, Dying, Conversation

  Raymond Carver (1968). “Near Klamath: Poems”

  9 Copy quote

• I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

  Raymond Carver

  Stories, Done

  8 Copy quote

• You have to have been in love to write poetry.

  Raymond Carver

  Writing, Been In Love, Has Beens

  Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.57, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• My life is going to change. I feel it.

  Raymond Carver

  Life Is, Feels

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories”, p.70, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• That morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and licks it off. That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.

  Raymond Carver

  Teacher, Morning, Trying

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories”, p.130, Vintage

  12 Copy quote

• Remember Haydn's 104 symphonies. Not all of them were great. But there were 104 of them.

  Raymond Carver

  Symphony, Remember

  Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.379, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.

  Raymond Carver

  Funny Things, Happens

  Raymond Carver (2015). “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, p.28, Vintage

  12 Copy quote

• The smooth stones you pick up and examine under the moon's light have been made blue from the sea. Next morning when you pull them from your trouser pocket, they are still blue.

  Raymond Carver

  Morning, Moon, Light

  Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.60, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• In short, everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well.

  Raymond Carver

  Different, Wells, Bottom

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories”, p.251, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

• All of us, all of us, all of us trying to save our immortal souls, some ways seemingly more round about and mysterious than others. We are having a good time here. But hope all will be revealed soon.

  Raymond Carver

  Soul, Trying, Way

  Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.164, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.

  Raymond Carver

  Hurt, Mean, Firsts

  Raymond Carver (2016). “Cathedral”, p.24, Random House

  10 Copy quote

• My circumstances of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the short story form.

  Raymond Carver

  Writing, Responsibility, Stories

  9 Copy quote

• She serves me a piece of it a few minutes out of the oven. A little steam rises from the slits on top. Sugar and spice - cinnamon - burned into the crust. But she's wearing these dark glasses in the kitchen at ten o'clock in the morning - everything nice - as she watches me break off a piece, bring it to my mouth, and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen, in winter. I fork the pie in and tell myself to stay out of it. She says she loves him. No way could it be worse.

  Raymond Carver

  Daughter, Morning, Nice

  Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.148, Vintage

  27 Copy quote

• In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldnt turn off the outside world to the extent that I can now.

  Raymond Carver

  Writing, Trying, World

  4 Copy quote

• You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk.

  Raymond Carver

  Beautiful, Daughter, Drunk

  Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.123, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• What do any of us really know about love?

  Raymond Carver

  Knows

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Beginners”, p.192, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber's chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber's fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.

  Raymond Carver

  Morning, Moving, Eye

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories”, p.219, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.

  Raymond Carver

  Shakes, Ready, Our Lives

  Raymond Carver (2009). “Collected Stories”

  7 Copy quote

• I am too nervous to eat pie.

  Raymond Carver

  Pie, Nervous

  7 Copy quote

• My heart is broken,” she goes. “It’s turned to a piece of stone. I’m no good. That’s what’s as bad as anything, that I’m no good anymore.

  Raymond Carver

  Heart, Broken, Pieces

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories”, p.131, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• I'm moving to Nevada. Either there or kill myself.

  Raymond Carver

  Moving, Nevada

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories”, p.133, Vintage

  13 Copy quote

• Mel thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. He'd said he'd spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. He said he still looked back on those years in the seminary as the most important years of his life.

  Raymond Carver

  Spiritual, Real, School

  Raymond Carver (2015). “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love / Beginners”, p.6, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

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