Raymond Carver Quotes

“There is in the soul a desire for not thinking.
For being still. Coupled with this
a desire to be strict, yes, and rigorous.
But the soul is also a smooth son of a bitch,
not always trustworthy. And I forgot that.”
― Raymond Carver, All of Us: The Collected Poems

“I don't fire up the prose. I just tell it straight and don't fool around with it.”
― Raymond Carver

“But here is the thing. When he gets on me, I suddenly feel I am fat. I feel am terrifically fat, so fat that Rudy is a tiny thing and hardly there at all.”
― Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“Il vuoto è l'inizio di tutte le cose.”
― Raymond Carver

“After moving his family from Yakima to Paradise, California, in 1958, he enrolled at Chico State College. There, he began an apprenticeship under the soon-to-be-famous John Gardner, the first "real writer" he had ever met. "He offered me the key to his office," Carver recalled in his preface to Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist (1983). "I see that gift now as a turning point." In addition, Gardner gave his student "close, line-by-line criticism" and taught him a set of values that was "not negotiable." Among these values were convictions that Carver held until his death. Like Gardner, whose On Moral Fiction (1978) decried the "nihilism" of postmodern formalism, Carver maintained that great literature is life-connected, life-affirming, and life-changing. "In the best fiction," he wrote "the central character, the hero or heroine, is also the ‘moved’ character, the one to whom something happens in the story that makes a difference. Something happens that changes the way that character looks at himself and hence the world." Through the 1960s and 1970s he steered wide of the metafictional "funhouse" erected by Barth, Barthelme and Company, concentrating instead on what he called "those basics of old-fashioned storytelling: plot, character, and action." Like Gardner and Chekhov, Carver declared himself a humanist. "Art is not self-expression," he insisted, "it’s communication.”
― William L. Stull

“Though he continued to take classes here and there in the sciences and in business, Ralph also took some classes in philosophy and literature and felt himself on the brink of some kind of huge discovery about himself. But it never came.”
― Raymond Carver, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?

“E dovrebbe farci vergognare di noi stessi quando parliamo come se sapessimo di cosa parliamo quando parliamo d'amore.”
― Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

“Mislim da smo završili", rekao je. "Mislim da si je uhvatio. Pogledaj. Šta misliš?"
Ali nisam otvorio oči. Hteo sam da ih još malo držim zatvorene. Činilo mi se da tako treba da postupim.
"Onda?", rekao je, "Da li gledaš?"
Oči su mi i dalje bile sklopljene. Bio sam u svojoj kući. Znao sam. Ali, nisam se osećao kao da sam negde unutra."
"To je stvarno nešto", rekoh.”
― Rejmond Karver

“It was then I remembered
back to those days and how
telephones used to jump when they rang.
And the people who would come
in those early-morning hours
to pound on the door in alarm.
Never mind the alarm felt inside.
I remembered that, and gravy dinners.
Knives lying around, waiting
for trouble. Going to bed
and hoping I wouldn’t wake up.

I love you, Bro, you said.
And then a sob passed
between us. I took hold
of the receiver as if
it were my buddy’s arm.
And I wished for us both
I could put my arms
around you, old friend.
I love you too, Bro.
I said that, and then we hung up.”
― Raymond Carver, Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems