Quotes from Raymond Carver

Io non è che sentissi la mancanza dei sogni. Tanto avevo i suoi di sogni su cui riflettere, se proprio mi serviva un'altra vita. E poi avevo una vicina che cantava o canticchiava tutto il giorno. Tutto sommato, potevo ritenermi fortunato.

Nick e Joanne guardavano l'incendio tenendosi stretti, ma mentre lei gli accarezzava distrattamente una spalla, Nick fu assalito dalla sensazione familiare, che ogni tanto lo attanagliava, di non sapere bene a cosa lei stesse pensando.

È un pezzo ormai che mi manchi. Mi sei mancato tanto che ormai è come se ti fossi perso, non so come spiegarlo. Ti ho perso. Non sei più mio.

Fuori la notte era un enorme sogno estraneo.

Quella notte, avvolto nelle coperte, avrebbe ricordato quei pochi minuti di intensa sensazione del tempo che passava, del giorno che finiva.

Por qué habría de querer yo una fotografía de tal desastre? Me acerque un poco más a ella y vi mi cabeza, mi cabeza, allí dentro, tras la ventana de la cocina. Me hizo pensar, al verme a mí mismo de ese modo. Lo digo en serio: es algo que le hace pensar a uno.

Por qué habría de querer yo una fotografía de tal desastre? Me acerqué un poco más a ella y vi mi cabeza, mi cabeza, allí dentro, tras la ventana de la cocina. Me hizo pensar, el verme a mí mismo de ese modo. Lo digo en serio: es algo que le hace pensar a uno.

Mike, you're not asleep, are you? No, he said. Nothing like that. Well don't go to sleep before me, she said. I don't want to be awake by myself.

Oía los latidos de mi corazón. Oía el corazón de los demás.

Things change, he says. I don't know how they do. But they do without your realizing it or wanting them to.

Two things are certain: 1) people no longer care what happens to other people, and 2) nothing makes any real difference any longer.

can't say anything just yet. Then I go, "Holly, these things, we'll look back on them too. We'll go, 'Remember the motel with all the crud in the pool?' Ã¢â'¬Â I go, "You see what I'm saying, Holly?

My Crow A crow flew into the tree outside my window. It was not Ted Hughes's crow, or Galway's crow. Or Frost's, Pasternak's, or Lorca's crow. Or one of Homer's crows, stuffed with gore, after the battle. This was just a crow. That never fit in anywhere in its life, or did anything worth mentioning. It sat there on the branch for a few minutes. Then picked up and flew beautifully out of my life.

The woman and the white-haired old man looked at the clock, as if it might tell them something about their situation and what they were supposed to do next.

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

Ralph also took some classes in philosophy and literature and felt himself on the brink of some kind of huge discovery about himself. But it never came.

Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.

You have to have been in love to write poetry.

There is no God, and conversation is a dying art.

Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that.

A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.