193 Quotes by Raymond Carver

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’d like to go out in the front yard and shout something. “None of this is worth it!” That’s what I’d like people to hear.

Grief"Woke up early this morning and from my bedlooked far across the Strait to seea small boat moving through the choppy water,a single running light on. Rememberedmy friend who used to shouthis dead wife’s name from hilltopsaround Perugia. Who set a platefor her at his simple table long aftershe was gone. And opened the windowsso she could have fresh air. Such displayI found embarrassing. So did his otherfriends. I couldn’t see it.Not until this morning.

I crack the other egg.Surely we have diminished one another.

They talked on into the early morning, the high, pale cast of light in the windows, and they did not think of leaving.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

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.

There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.

You tell me you didn’t sleep well. I sayI didn’t either. You had a terrible night. “Me too.”We’re extraordinarily calm and tender with each otheras if sensing the other’s rickety state of mind.As if we knew what the other was feeling. We don’t,of course. We never do. No matter.It’s the tenderness I care about. That’s the giftthis morning that moves and holds me.Same as every morning.