Quotessence
Home / Authors / Raymond Carver Books
Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver Books

Writer

Cathedral

A source page for quotes linked to Raymond Carver.

0 quotes

Beginners

A source page for quotes linked to Raymond Carver.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“At least I want to get up early one more morning, before sunrise. Before the birds, even. I want to throw cold water on my face and be at my work table when the sky lightens and smoke begins to rise from the chimneys of the other houses. I want to see the waves break on this rocky beach, not just hear them break as I did in my sleep. I want to see again the ships that pass through the Strait from every seafaring country in the world - old, dirty freighters just barely moving along, and the swift new cargo vessels painted every color under the sun that cut the water as they pass. I want to keep an eye out for them. And for the little boat that plies the water between the ships and the pilot station near the lighthouse. I want to see them take a man off the ship and put another one up on board. I want to spend the day watching this happen and reach my own conclusions. I hate to seem greedy - I have so much to be thankful for already. But I want to get up early one more morning, at least. And go to my place with some coffee and wait. Just wait, to see what's going to happen.”

LifePoetry
Author:Raymond Carver
Create image

“And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, is that if something happened to one of us--excuse me for saying this--but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory.”

LoveRelationshipsLoss
Book:What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Create image

“Happiness So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy has a bag over his shoulder. They are so happy they aren't saying anything, these boys. I think if they could, they would take each other's arm. It's early in the morning, and they are doing this thing together. They come on, slowly. The sky is taking on light, though the moon still hangs pale over the water. Such beauty that for a minute death and ambition, even love, doesn't enter into this. Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.”

LifeHappinessPoetry
Author:Raymond Carver
Create image

“It's possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things-- a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring-- with immense, even startling power. It is possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the reader's spine-- the source of artistic delight, as Nabokov would have it. That's the kind of writing that most interests me.”

WritingCommonplaceOn Writing1983
Author:Raymond Carver
Create image

“Η γυναίκα μου εξαφανίστηκε παίρνοντας κι όλα τα ρούχα της μαζί. Άφησε πίσω της δυο νάιλον κάλτσες και μια βούρτσα για τα μαλλιά που 'χε παραπέσει πίσω από το κρεβάτι. Θα 'θελα τώρα να επιστήσω την προσοχή σας σε τούτες τις καλοφτιαγμένες κάλτσες και στα δυνατά σκούρα μαλλιά που είχαν πιαστεί στις τρίχες της βούρτσας. Πέταξα τις κάλτσες στα σκουπίδια, τη βούρτσα θα την κρατήσω και θα τη χρησιμοποιώ. Το κρεβάτι μόνο μοιάζει αλλόκοτο και μου είναι αδύνατο να το δικαιολογήσω.”

Carver
Book:Δωμάτια όπου οι άνθρωποι ουρλιάζουν και πληγώνουν ο ένας τον άλλο
Create image

“Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason -- if the worlds are in any way blurred -- the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'.”

WritingLanguageAdviceWordsOn Writing90
Book:Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose
Create image

“V.S. Pritchett's definition of a short story is 'something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.' Notice the 'glimpse' part of this. First the glimpse. Then the glimpse gives life, turned into something that illuminates the moment and may, if we're lucky -- that word again -- have even further ranging consequences and meaning. The short story writer's task is to invest the glimpse with all that is in his power. He'll bring his intelligence and literary skill to bear (his talent), his sense of proportion and sense of the fitness of things: of how things out there really are and how he sees those things -- like no one else sees them. And this is done through the use of clear and specific language, language used so as to bring to life the details that will light up the story for the reader. For the details to be concrete and convey meaning, the language must be accurate and precisely given. The words can be so precise they may even sound flat, but they can still carry; if used right they can hit all the notes.”

WritingDesignWordsOn Writing92
Book:Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose
Create image

“In his better moments, Mr Baxter is a decent, ordinary guy — a guy you wouldn't mistake for anyone special. But he is special. In my book, he is. For one thing he has a full night's sleep behind him, and he's just embraced his wife before leaving for work. But even before he goes, he's already expected home a set number of hours later. True, in the grander scheme of things, his return will be an event of small moment — but an event nonetheless.”

Menudo
Book:Elephant and other stories
Create image

“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.”

BrotherhoodBrothersRaymond Carver
Book:Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems
Create image

“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.”

YearsSaidStillsImportantRealSchoolSpiritualFiveMedicalQuittingFive YearsReal LoveSpiritual LoveMedical SchoolSeminary
Book:What We Talk About When We Talk About Love / Beginners
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingTryingMindMadeEyeTodayMovingLeftGrowsFeltCitiesMorningWifeHairFingersStartingCalmMy WifeCaliforniaBordersChairsSweetnessNew LifeOregonBarbersCrescent
Book:Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories
Create image