Quotes from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“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.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“This is awful. I don't know what's going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you're going to do a good job with it.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“I'm a heart surgeon, sure, but I'm just a mechanic. I go in and I fuck around and I fix things. Shit.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“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.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“You see, this happened a few months ago, but it's still going on right now, and it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“I'm moving to Nevada. Either there or kill myself.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“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.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“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 starting to grow.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you’re going to do a good job with it.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“That's right,' Mel said. 'Some vassal would come along and spear the bastard in the name of love. Or whatever the fuck it was they fought over in those days.'
Same things we fight over these days,' Terri said.
Laura said, 'Nothing's changed.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“But here is the thing. When he gets on me, I suddenly feel I am fat. I feel am terrifically fat, so fat that Rudy is a tiny thing and hardly there at all.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“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.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“Vorrei tanto essere come qualsiasi altro da queste parti - una persona normale, essenziale, senza particolari qualità - e salire su in camera, mettermi a letto e dormire.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“What’s there to tell? The people over there embrace for a minute, and then they go inside the house together. They leave the light burning. Then they remember, and it goes out.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“Be’... – disse lei, rigirandosi compiaciuta sulla schiena. – Mi piace mangiare roba buona, bistecche e patate rosolate, cose cosí. Mi piace leggere libri e riviste, viaggiare in treno di notte e quelle volte che ho viaggiato in aereo –. Fece una pausa. – Naturalmente non sto elencando le cose in ordine di preferenza. Dovrei pensarci meglio per elencarle in ordine di preferenza. Però mi piace, viaggiare in aereo. C’è un momento quando ci si stacca da terra in cui hai la sensazione che qualsiasi cosa succeda, andrà bene –. Gli passò una gamba sopra la caviglia. – Mi piace stare alzata fino a notte alta e poi restare a letto fino a tardi il giorno dopo. Vorrei tanto potessimo farlo sempre, invece che una volta ogni tanto. E poi mi piace il sesso. Mi piace essere toccata di tanto in tanto quando non me l’aspetto. Mi piace andare al cinema e farmi una birra con le amiche dopo. Mi piace avere amiche. Janice Hendricks mi piace un sacco. Mi piacerebbe andare a ballare almeno una volta a settimana. E avere sempre dei bei vestiti. Mi piacerebbe poter comprare bei vestiti anche per i bambini ogni volta che gli servono, senza dover aspettare. Per esempio Laurie ha bisogno di un vestito nuovo adesso per Pasqua. E mi piacerebbe comprare a Gary un completino o qualcosa del genere. Ormai è grandicello. Vorrei che anche tu avessi un completo nuovo. Anzi, tu ne hai veramente piú bisogno di Gary. E mi piacerebbe che avessimo una casa tutta nostra. Vorrei piantarla di traslocare ogni anno, due anni al massimo. Ma soprattutto vorrei tanto che io e te potessimo vivere una buona vita onesta, senza doverci sempre preoccupare dei conti, dei soldi e roba del genere. Ma tu dormi, – disse. – No che non dormo, – disse lui. – Non riesco a pensare ad altre cose. Ora tocca a te. Dimmi che cosa piacerebbe a te. – Non so. Un sacco di cose, – bofonchiò lui. – Be’, dimmele. Si fa tanto per parlare, no? – Vorrei tanto che mi lasciassi in pace, Nan –. Si rigirò dalla sua parte e lasciò penzolare il braccio oltre il bordo.”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

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Popular quotes

“On the wall next to the door we’d entered through was a huge floor-to-ceiling bulletin/whiteboard combo and hanging from a thumbtack on the bulletin board amongst pictures and other various sorts of memorabilia was my bra. It’d been washed but it still had
a good many blotches of pink on it. If that wasn’t shocking enough, the dialogue written over the last two weeks on the whiteboard pertaining to said bra certainly was. I’ll include the copy just so you can truly appreciate what I’m dealing with here.
Tristan’s Mom: What’s this?
Tristan: A size 34B lace covered slingshot.
Jeff: Nice!
Tristan’s Mom: Do I want to know?
Tristan: I don’t know, do you?
Tristan’s Mom: Not really. Are you planning on returning it or did you win some kind of prize?
Tristan: I plead the fifth.
Tristan’s Dad: Well done son.
Jeff: Ditto!
Tristan’s Mom: Don’t encourage him.
Tristan: Gee, thanks Mom.
Tristan’s Dad: Can’t a father be proud of his only child?
Tristan’s Mom: He doesn’t need your help…obviously.
Tristan’s Dad: That’s because he takes after me.
Tristan: Was there anything else I can do for you two?
Tristan’s Mom: Tell her I tried to get the stains out, but I’m afraid they set in before I got to it.
Tristan: I’m sure she’ll appreciate your effort, but if I’m any judge (and I’d like to think I am) its
size has caused it to become obsolete and she needs to trade up.
Jeff: I’m so proud.
Tristan: Thanks man.
Tristan’s Mom: A name would be nice you know.
Tristan: Camie.
Tristan’s Mom: Do we get to meet her?
Tristan: Sure. I’ll have my people call your people and set it up.
Tristan’s Mom: I don’t know why I bother. Do you want anything from the store?
Tristan: Yeah, Camie’s sleeping over tonight and I promised her bacon and eggs for breakfast.
Jeff’s got the eggs covered but could you pick up some bacon for us and maybe a box of Twinkies
for the bus? Thanks, you’re the best.
Jeff: I have the eggs covered?
Tristan’s Dad: He gets his sense of humor from you.
Tristan’s Mom: Flattery will get you everywhere. How would you like your eggs prepared dear?”
― Jenn Cooksey, quote from Shark Bait

“baby-sitting their roast in his oven? Who knew what he would be doing for them next?”
― Lynn Austin, quote from While We're Far Apart

“Hegelian dialectic—a psychological tool used to manipulate the masses. In this case, you create a problem, wait for the reaction, and then offer the solution. What people historically fail to realize, though, is that those offering the solution are the same people who caused the problem in the first place. They also fail to realize that no matter what the solution is, it always ends up providing its creators with more power.”
― Brad Thor, quote from Black List

“Girls, I need to tell you some things about our family," Sabrina said. "Have you ever heard of the Brothers Grimm?”
― Michael Buckley, quote from The Council of Mirrors

“Marcus Akida was always a sight to behold whenever he entered a room. Though he had the typical ash blonde hair and clouded eyes, his skin shone with the same ebony brilliance that it had the day he was captured… in Tanzania. At a lean and muscular 6’4”, in the heavy red robe of the Seers, he was at once angel and demon; beautiful and terrifying.”
― Cerece Rennie Murphy, quote from Order of the Seers

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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