Carver Quotes & Sayings

Get in, get out. Don't linger. Go on. — Raymond Carver

It's akin to style, what I'm talking about, but it isn't style alone. It is the writer's particular and unmistakable signature on everything he writes. It is his world and no other. This is one of the things that distinguishes one writer from another. Not talent. There's plenty of that around. But a writer who has some special way of looking at things and who gives artistic expression to that way of looking: that writer may be around for a time. — Raymond Carver

Then i don't know I remembered how he was when he was nineteen, the way he looked, running across this field to where his dad sat on a tractor, hand over his eyes, watching Wes run toward him - Chef's House — Raymond Carver

In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldn't turn off the outside world to the extent that I can now. — Raymond Carver

The first part of my plan is to write until I die.

The second part is to not die. — Will Carver

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones. — Raymond Carver

Well understand this! If you want to join our sales team; I don't need pillion riders; I need high drivers who grasp the handle-bars. — Martin Carver

When the bureaucratic details were handled, they broke up. Del, Shrake, and Jenkins followed him back to his office, where they talked some more about the surveillance aspects. A tech would put a tracking bug on Carver's vehicle, and Del would try to get one on Dannon's, if he could do it without being seen. "The big question is: Is he gonna talk, or is he gonna stonewall, or is he gonna shoot, or is he gonna run?" Jenkins said. "That's four questions," Shrake said. "It irritates me that you can't count. — John Sandford

The library of my elementary school had this great biography section, and I read all of these paperback biographies until they were dog-eared. The story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Madame Curie and Martin Luther King and George Washington Carver and on and on and on. — Christine Quinn

How far you go in life depends on ... — George Washington Carver

The star rigger's Flux: a higher-dimensional realm where reality and fantasy became strangely merged, where landscapes of the mind intersected with the real fabric of space, where space itself flowed and surged with movement - and where a rigger's skills could vault him across light-years, or send him spiraling to his death. — Jeffrey A. Carver

The argument is that Black History Month dwells too much on the downside of white America's relationship to its brothers of African heritage, slavery and torture and the like, and ignores the work of all the good white folk through the years who were nice to black people (did you know it was a white teacher who first suggested George Washington Carver study horticulture?). — Matt Taibbi

When you live in the dark for so long, you begin to love it. And it loves you back, and isn't that the point? You think, the face turns to the shadows, and just as well. It accepts, it heals, it allows. But it also devours. — Raymond Carver

When our thoughts - which bring actions - are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white, we are in a living hell. That is as real as hell will ever be. — George Washington Carver

In comedy, beware the split focus. The audience should focus on the face of the actor. The audience must see the setup. If there is action elsewhere on the stage, the comic line can be lost. — James Carver

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 an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason
if the worlds are in any way blurred
the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'. — Raymond Carver

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

I guess my writing has changed as my life has. — Raymond Carver

Late Fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth. — Raymond Carver

There is no God, and conversation is a dying art. — Raymond Carver

Practise, practise, practise writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong. — Jeffrey Carver

The fierce ambitions of Carver Dana Andrews, son of a Baptist preacher, might well have been imagined by Horatio Alger, Jr.
or Samuel Goldwyn
but not the hidden costs behind those achievements. Carl Rollyson compassionately captures the man behind the movie star. — Marion Meade

There are as many ways to discover your story as there are to trip over a dog in the kitchen--and some of them feel about as planned. — Jeffrey A. Carver

I believe that the great Creator has put ores and oil on this Earth to give us a breathing spell ... as we exhaust them, we must be prepared to fall back on our farms, which are God's true storehouse. We can learn to synthesize materials for every human need from things that grow. — George Washington Carver

He did not mention that his skill was as a carver. He had never sold pounamu. He would not sell pounamu. For one could not put a price upon a treasure, just as one could not purchase mana, and one could not make a bargain with a god. Gold was not a treasure - this Tauwhare knew. Gold was like all capital in that it had no memory: its drift was always onward, away from the past. — Eleanor Catton

Beauties" by Anton Chekhov, "The Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J. D. Salinger, "Brownies" or "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" both by ZZ Packer, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel, "Fat" by Raymond Carver, "Indian Camp — Gabrielle Zevin

Detective Inspector Carver took a picture from the breast pocket of his suit. He handed it to me. 'This is what you did, Michael. Take a good look. See if it jogs your memory.'
I gawped at the mutilated corpse of a naked young girl lying on a blood-soaked double bed. Her hands were bound to the brass headboard with duct tape. Blood covered her upper body, and her long blonde hair was streaked a murderous shade of red. One eye stared at the ceiling as if searching for salvation, the other, a bloody unrecognisable pulp, bore no relation to its sightless counterpart.
'Carla Marie Coombs. Twenty-one years of age. Do you recognise her, Michael? — Mark Tilbury

Black people have been qualified to be president for hundreds of years. George Washington Carver could have been president. I could go on with a list of black men that were qualified to be the president of the United States. So the Obama victory is progress for white people. — Chris Rock

Jeff Carver is a hard sf writer who gets it right-his science and his people are equally convincing. NEPTUNE CROSSING combines his strengths, from a chilling look at alien machine intelligence, to cutting-edge chaos theory, to the pangs of finite humans in the face of the infinite. If you like intriguing ideas delivered in an exciting plot, this is your meat. — Gregory Benford

There is in the soul a desire for not thinking.
For being still. Coupled with this
a desire to be strict, yes, and rigorous.
But the soul is also a smooth son of a bitch,
not always trustworthy. And I forgot that. — Raymond Carver

He did not know what to do. Not just now, he thought, not just in this, not just about this, today and tomorrow, but every day on the earth. — Raymond Carver

Gus the driver is everywhere and yet he appears nowhere, not in portraits or photographs, not even in the stories of men like Barthelme and Carver, who were all about guys with jobs and prospects like Gus's but who insisted on more sorrow, more angst, than Gus remotely manifests. If Gus weeps sometimes for no reason, if he stands despairing in the aisle of a Wal-Mart, it is not apparent in his daily demeanor ... — Michael Cunningham

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

Human need is really a great spiritual vacuum which God seeks to fill ... With one hand in the hand of a fellow man in need and the other in the hand of Christ, He could get across the vacuum. — George Washington Carver

The beating on the tail of the snake may stop his progress a little, but the more vital parts must be struck before his poisonous death-dealing venom will be wiped out. — George Washington Carver

Legality is just the name for everything that's not dangerous for the ruling order. — Hari Kunzru

Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It's the impetus for creating change. — Max Carver

Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing pine,the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepest still, The yew obedient to the bender's will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound. — Edmund Spenser

*Always schedule enough time between connections. I always like to give myself at least two hours between flights. It's much easier to sit in the terminal for three hours than it is to sit on standby for two days because you missed your connection. — Morgan Carver Richards

And did you get what you wanted from this life even so? i did. — Raymond Carver

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it? — John Ruskin

Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. Keep your thoughts free from hate, and you need have no fear from those who hate you. — George Washington Carver

God cannot use you as He wishes until you come into the fullness of His Glory. Do not get alarmed, my friend, when doubts creep in. That is old Satan. Pray, pray, pray. — George Washington Carver

Education is understanding relationships. — George Washington Carver

So as near as I could tell the end of the world began roughly about the time that Billy Carver's butt rang about halfway through the War of 1812. — Steve Vernon

Education, in the broadest of truest sense, will make an individual seek to help all people, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of condition. — George Washington Carver

Why do you keep saying that " he asked in response "Apples and oranges aren't that different really. I mean they're both fruit. Their weight is extremely similar. They both contain acidic elements. They're both roughly spherical. They serve the same social purpose. With the possible exception of a tangerine I can't think of anything more similar to an orange than an apple. If I was having lunch with a man who was eating an apple and-while I was looking away-he replaced that apple with an orange I doubt I'd even notice. So how is this a metaphor for difference I could understand if you said 'That's like comparing apples and uranium ' or 'That's like comparing apples with baby wolverines ' or 'That's like comparing apples with the early work of Raymond Carver ' or 'That's like comparing apples with hermaphroditic ground sloths.' Those would all be valid examples of profound disparity. — Chuck Klosterman

I know you, Ruth Ann Carver. I know you better than you know yourself. You think you do things right. You think you're a paragon of right living. This is a self-told lie, one bolstered by your coddling parents and grandparents. — Carolyn Lee Adams

There is literally nothing that I ever asked to do, that I asked the blessed Creator to help me to do, that I have not been able to accomplish. — George Washington Carver

While there is no cure, cystic fibrosis is so close to being a livable disease. There is a lot of hope. — Max Carver

When I'm fishing, I feel guilty that I'm not writing, and when I'm writing, I feel guilty that I'm not fishing. But when push comes to shove, I'll always take the writing. — Raymond Carver

Closing the gate is meant to be a season-long arc, but the questions that come up in the quest, and the series of reveals and discoveries, are meant to start being the under-pinings for questions, secrets and things that will be explored in future seasons. — Jeremy Carver

All over the world great writers were dying young: Italo Calvino, Raymond Carver, and now here was Angela wrestling with the Reaper. A fatwa was not the only way to die. There were older types of death sentence that still worked very well. — Salman Rushdie

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

Our creator is the same and never changes despite the names given Him by people here and in all parts of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all, He would still be there, within us, waiting to give us good on this earth. — George Washington Carver

You're ... writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read. — Raymond Carver

My purpose alone must be God's purpose. — George Washington Carver

Getting anything off the ground is going to require a little bit of risk. That risk starts with sharing the idea. — Max Carver

There is a use for almost everything. — George Washington Carver

Being appointed Elder Professor meant very much taking over the shop, in that the professor in those days controlled all the moneys. — John Henry Carver

You have to have been in love to write poetry. — Raymond Carver

Mrs. Appleyard, in contrast, was thin and sallow and when her husband was out of the apartment Ursula could hear her singing mournfully to herself in a language that she couldn't place. Something Eastern European by the sound of it. How useful Mr. Carver's Esperanto would be, she thought. (Only if everyone spoke it, of course.) And especially these days with so many refugees flooding into London. — Kate Atkinson

Carver's best book yet! FROM A CHANGELING STAR combines deft characterization and fascinating extrapolation into a complex, compulsively readable thriller. I wish all science fiction novels could be this good. — Craig Shaw Gardner

Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this. — Raymond Carver

No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it. — George Washington Carver

It had me," he said. "The shark had me. I was, literally, about to be torn in two. You saved me. In the nick of time, you saved me."
"You're welcome," Skulduggery said.
"I was talking to Valkyrie."
Skulduggery's head tilted. "But I'm the one who figured it all out."
Valkyrie grinned. "You're very welcome, Geoffrey, although I can't take all the credit. China helped, you know."
"But I carver the right symbol," Skulduggery said.
Scrutinous clasped Valkyrie hand in his. "If there is anything I can do for you in the future, anything at all, do not hesitate to ask."
Skulduggery looked at him. "Can I ask, too?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Valkyrie cared that I was being attacked. You told me to shut up."
"That's because your screaming was very annoying. How is that my fault? — Derek Landy

Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate. — Raymond Carver

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. — George Washington Carver

I'll have to think about it, but I can do that," Taryn said. "Of course you can," Dannon said. "But don't think about ways to trick them or outsmart them. Just focus on your ignorance. You don't know anything, but you're willing to speculate, and you'd like some information from them - to hear what they think." "What about you and Carver?" "We can handle it," Dannon said. "We've spent half our lives lying to cops, of one kind or another. Nobody else on the staff knows. Might not be a bad idea for us to stay away completely . . . unless they ask for us." "Let's do that," Taryn said. "Maybe you two could start doing some advance security work." "I'll talk to Ron," Dannon said. He heard high heels, and said, "Here comes Alice. — John Sandford

Island Records used what we built and tried to cash in on it which is so annoying. So it came time to do Carver City record and Island wanted to do it and we're just like "What's the point?" I mean, at that point they were even admitting like, "Yeah, we're just gonna do what we've always done." — Jess Margera

Where there is no vision, there is no hope. — George Washington Carver

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. — Raymond Carver

The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible. — George Washington Carver

A few years after you disappeared, a postal worker named Ben Carver was sentenced to death for murdering six young men. (He is a homosexual, which, according to Huckleberry, means he is not attracted to murdering young women.) Rumors have it that Carver cannibalized some of his victims, but there was never a trial, so the more salacious details were not made public. I found Carver's name in the sheriff's file ten months ago, the fifth anniversary of your disappearance. The letter was written on Georgia Department of Corrections stationery and signed by the warden. He was informing the sheriff that Ben Carver, a death row inmate, had mentioned to one of the prison guards that he might have some information pertaining to your disappearance. — Karin Slaughter

The greatest carver does the least cutting. LAO-TZU — Phil Jackson

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

I read a lot of short fiction, like Kurt Vonnegut and Raymond Carver and Wells Tower. — Lorde

Making an effort is the firm foundation to your success. You are worth the effort. — Regina R. Carver

Years ago I went into my laboratory and said, 'Dear Mr. Creator, please tell me what the universe was made for?' The Great Creator answered, 'You want to know too much for that little mind of yours. Ask for something more your size, little man.' — George Washington Carver

People change, but the two things that always stay true is our heart and our home. The heart always knows when it feels love no matter what happens in our mind. Home isn't just a place. It's a feeling. It knows where you belong. — Rhonda Lee Carver

What are you doing?" she asked.
I don't know. Instinct not logic currently dictated his actions. But he didn't admit this aloud.
"Do you always ask so many questions?"
"Only when I'm trying to understand what's going on."
"Isn't it obvious?"
Confusion clouded her gaze. "No."
Did she not sense the attraction between them? Of course she didn't. She
was a simple human. She couldn't know how his bear chuffed at her
nearness. How the scent of her aroused him. How he wanted to lay claim
to her body. What the (deuce) is wrong with me?
Apparently, his grandmother wondered the same thing. "Reid Alexander Carver, what are you doing manhandling our guest?"
Oops, caught harboring naughty thoughts and jolted back to sanity. What am I doing? — Eve Langlais

He raised his bottle. "Well, if you ever want to go diving when you're off duty, let me know." "I'm not looking for a relationship, Mr. Carver. I'm here to solve a murder." He opened his front door to go inside. "Who said anything about a relationship? I'm just offering a no-strings recreational dive." A — Toni Anderson

It's something that I feel I know about, relationships between men and women. I like to write from the woman's point of view now and again, to get inside her head, to feel what she's feeling. — Raymond Carver

Besides, if I'd decided to pull Carver's spine out of his body, I would've done it already."
"Can you actually do that?"
Curran frowned. "I don't know. I mean theoretically if you broke the spine above the pelvis, you could, but then there are ribs ... I'll have to try it sometime. — Ilona Andrews

An expensive play toy. It's different, so people want it. Then they get bored, look for something newer, better. I don't work that way."
A slow nod of a face badly in need of a shave. "I don't either."
I slipped my hand from under his, picked up the Stinger again. "There's much to be said for dependability. Reliability. Consistency." I held it up, as if in inspection. it was plan and functional compared to the sleek Carver. "It's not fancy. No Frills. But it will never, ever let me down. — Linnea Sinclair

It is simply service that measures success. — George Washington Carver

What do any of us really know about love? — Raymond Carver

I had some vague memory of visiting Canberra as a lad, when we came up with my father by car. But when I made the long train journey from Sydney to Canberra and arrived at the little stop, I did wonder slightly whether this really was the national capital. — John Henry Carver

I think a lot of our team commitment is a silent understanding that each one of us has poured our life into what we're doing. — Claire Carver-Dias

One more nice thing about short stories is that you can create a story out of the smallest details -an idea that springs up in your mind, a word, an image, whatever. In most cases it's like jazz improvisation, with the story taking me where it wants to. And another good point is that with short stories you don't have to worry about failing. If the idea doesn't work out the way you hoped it would, you just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that they can't all be winners. Even with masters of the genre like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver -even Anton Chekhov- not every short story is a masterpiece. I find this a great comfort. You can learn from your mistakes (in other words, those you can't call complete success) and use that in the next story you write. — Haruki Murakami

The fiction I'm most interested in has lines of reference to the real world. — Raymond Carver

I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for ones self. — George Washington Carver

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 care anything about it. — Raymond Carver

. . . though if Fanshawe had not spoken in so unbecoming a way, Laurence would have liked to keep Carver out of it, as he knew the boy had a poor head for heights, which struck him as a grave impediment for an aviator. — Naomi Novik

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

I'm moving to Nevada. Either there or kill myself. — Raymond Carver

Writers will be judged by what they write. — Raymond Carver

She serves me a piece of it a few minutes
out of the oven. A little steam rises
from the slits on top. Sugar and spice -
cinnamon - burned into the crust.
But she's wearing these dark glasses
in the kitchen at ten o'clock
in the morning - everything nice -
as she watches me break off
a piece, bring it to my mouth,
and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen,
in winter. I fork the pie in
and tell myself to stay out of it.
She says she loves him. No way
could it be worse. — Raymond Carver

There is no short cut to acheivement. — George Washington Carver

A life that stood out as a gospel of self-forgetting service. He could have added fortune to fame but caring for neither he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world. The centre of his world was the south where he was born in slavery some 79 years ago and where he did his work as a creative scientist. — George Washington Carver