"Nights without beginning that had no end. Talking about a past as if it'd really happened. Telling themselves that this time next year, this time next year, things were going to be different."

--

Source : Raymond Carver (2015). “All of Us: The Collected Poems”, p.121, Vintage

Raymond Carver

#Past Quotes #Night Quotes #Talking Quotes

“The Holy Ghost converts [us] from carnality to spirituality. It cleanses, heals, and purifies the soul. . . . . Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, and water baptism are all preliminary and prerequisite to it, but [the baptism of fire] is the consummation. To receive [this baptism of fire] is to have one's garments washed in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.”
“And I ask myself what it is about me that makes this wonderful, beautiful woman return. Is it because I'm pathetic, helpless in my current state, completely dependent on her? Or is it my sense of humour, my willingness to tease her, to joke my way into painful, secret places? Do I help her understand herself? Do I make her happy? Do I do something for her that her husband and son can't do? Has she fallen in love with me? As the days pass and I continue to heal, my body knitting itself back together, I begin to allow myself to think that she has.”
“"The Jews should not be allowed to keep what they have obtained from others by usury; it were best that they were compelled to worked so that they could earn their living instead of doing nothing but becoming avaricious."”
“Just because someone thinks they remember something in detail, with confidence and with emotion, does not mean that it actually happened, .. False memories have these characteristics too.”
“People have said over the years that the reason I did not give up my seat was because I was tired. I did not think of being physically tired. My feet were not hurting. I was tired in a different way. I was tired of seeing so many men treated as boys and not called by their proper names or titles. I was tired of seeing children and women mistreated and disrespected because of the color of their skin. I was tired of Jim Crow laws, of legally enforced racial segregation.”
“If in your heart you make a manger for his birth then God will once again become a child on earth.”
“Today you will say things you can predict and other things you could never imagine this minute. Don't reject them, let them come through when they're ready, don't think you can plan it al out. This day will never, no matter how long you live, happen again. It is exquisitely singular. It will never again be exactly repeated.”
“Humans are the absolute worst thing to happen to this planet.”

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