193 Quotes by Raymond Carver

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you’re going to do a good job with it.

Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn’t hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.

But he stays by the window, remembering that life. They had laughed. They had leaned on each other and laughed until the tears had come, while everything else – the cold and where he’d go in it – was outside, for a while anyway.

I’m moving to Nevada. Either there or kill myself.

She won’t give him back his look.

I’ve done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

It’s strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.

That morning she pours Teacher’s over my belly and licks it off. That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.

There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I’d like to know. I wish someone could tell me.