193 Quotes by Raymond Carver

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.

The smooth stones you pick up and examine under the moon’s light have been made blue from the sea. Next morning when you pull them from your trouser pocket, they are still blue.

I am a cigarette with a body attached to it.

Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone special, as well as love of the other person’s being, his or her essence, as it were. Carnal love and, well, call it sentimental love, the day-to-day caring about the other person.

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.

She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying.

Today, my heart, like the front door, stands open for the first time in months.

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.

You’re a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you’re a drunk.