Benjamin

“Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.”
― Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall

“I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.”
― Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories

“To leave the everpresent tension of Great Meadow was like shedding stiff, formal clothes or kicking off pinching shoes.”
― John McGahern, Amongst Women

“It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.”
― Raymond Carver