Katy Johnson

“You have to have been in love to write poetry.”
― Raymond Carver, All of Us: The Collected Poems

“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”
― Raymond Carver

“Close your eyes now,' the blind man said to me. I did it. I closed them just like he said.

'Are they closed?' he said. 'Don't fudge.'

'They're closed,' I said.

'Keep them that way,' he said. He said, 'Don't stop now. Draw.'

So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.

Then he said, 'I think that's it. I think you got it,' he said. 'Take a look. What do you think?'

But I had my eyes closed. I thought I'd keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do.

'Well?" he said. 'Are you looking?'

My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything.

'It's really something,' I said.”
― Raymond Carver, Cathedral

“twice I have lived forever in a smile”
― E.E. Cummings