193 Quotes by Raymond Carver

But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window – maybe rearrange all the furniture.

Get in, get out. Don’t linger. Go on.

There is no answer. It’s okay. But even if it wasn’t okay, what am I supposed to do?

Why don’t you kids dance? he decided to say, and then said it. “Why don’t you dance?

You’ve got to work with your mistakes until they look intended. Understand?

I dressed and went for a walk – determined not to return until I took in what Nature had to offer.

There are significant moments in everyone’s day that can make literature. That’s what you ought to write about.

Art doesn’t have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it.

Nights without beginning that had no end. Talking about a past as if it’d really happened. Telling themselves that this time next year, this time next year, things were going to be different.