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de550e6
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A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house. Except for the chrome hooks, he was an ordinary-looking man of fifty or so.
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hooks
no-hands
viewfinder
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Raymond Carver |
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8f3f31b
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You have to have been in love to write poetry.
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Raymond Carver |
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805d64c
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Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they..
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advice
language
on-writing
words
writing
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Raymond Carver |
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08a3667
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She won't give him back his look.
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Raymond Carver |
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1d06b85
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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.
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everything-stuck-to-him
family
fighting
relationships
winter
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Raymond Carver |
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0501c6a
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How far would you run with a piece of lead in your heart?
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Raymond Carver |
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8959e17
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The past is unclear. It's as if there is a film over those early years. I can't even be sure that the things I remember happening really happened to me.
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Raymond Carver |
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5522f0f
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I want to hide from it, that's what I want to do. I want to just close my eyes and let it pass by. Let it take the next man.
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Raymond Carver |
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d7c741c
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But I guess even the knights were vessels to someone. Isn't that the way it worked? But then everyone is always a vessel to someone. Isn't that right, Terri? But what I liked about the knights, besides their ladies, was that they had that suit of armor, you know, and they couldn't get hurt very easily. No cars in those days, you know? No drunk teenagers to tear into your ass." Vassals," Terri said. What?" Mel said. Vassals," Terri said. "Th..
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Raymond Carver |
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bd7c417
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It is August. My life is going to change. I feel it.
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Raymond Carver |
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cef8574
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Close your eyes now,' the blind man said to me. I did it. I closed them just like he said. 'Are they closed?' he said. 'Don't fudge.' 'They're closed,' I said. 'Keep them that way,' he said. He said, 'Don't stop now. Draw.' So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now. Then he said, 'I think that's it. I think you got it,' he said. 'Take a look. What do you..
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Raymond Carver |
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59b520f
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In short, everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well.
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Raymond Carver |
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8b2cea4
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I don't know why, but I suddenly felt a long way away from everybody I had known and loved when I was a girl. I missed people. For a minute I stood there and wished I could get back to that time. Then with my next thought I understood clearly that I couldn't do that. No. But it came to me then that my life did not remotely resemble the life I thought I'd have when I had been young and looking ahead to things.
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Raymond Carver |
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6f3d011
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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.
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Raymond Carver |
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b363488
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Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive. Fear of falling asleep at night. Fear of not falling asleep. Fear of the past rising up. Fear of the present taking flight. Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night. Fear of electrical storms. Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek! Fear of dogs I've been told won't bite. Fear of anxiety! Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend. Fear of running out of..
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Raymond Carver |
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66c28de
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We opened our eyes and turned in bed to take a good look at each other. We both knew it then. We'd reached the end of something, and the thing was to find out where new to start.
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Raymond Carver |
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4874522
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V.S. Pritchett's definition of a short story is 'something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.' Notice the 'glimpse' part of this. First the glimpse. Then the glimpse gives life, turned into something that illuminates the moment and may, if we're lucky -- that word again -- have even further ranging consequences and meaning. The short story writer's task is to invest the glimpse with all that is in his power. He'll bring his in..
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design
on-writing
words
writing
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Raymond Carver |
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0de4663
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There is no God, and conversation is a dying art.
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Raymond Carver |
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d83c7be
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But I guess even the knights were vessels to someone. Isn't that the way it worked? But then everyone is always a vessel to someone.
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Raymond Carver |
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a222152
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Your face, your mouth, your shoulder inconceivable to me now! Where did they go? It's like I dreamed them. The stones we brought home from the beach lie face up on the windowsill, cooling. Come home. Do you hear?
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Raymond Carver |
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9866aef
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A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house.
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Raymond Carver |
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29c64d1
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It was [John Gardner's] conviction that if the words in the story were blurred because of the author's insensitivity, carelessness, or sentimentality, then the story suffered from a tremendous handicap. But there was something even worse and something that must be avoided at all costs: if the words and the sentiments were dishonest, the author was faking it, writing about things he didn't care about or believe in, then nobody could ever car..
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writing
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Raymond Carver |
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a5f066a
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Sai bene che non sogno. Ma ieri notte ho sognato che assistevamo a un funerale nel mare. All'inizio ero attonito. Poi pieno di rimpianti. Ma tu
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love
sea
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Raymond Carver |
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ad379e9
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That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber's chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber's fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already sta..
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Raymond Carver |