What We Don't Know About Each Other Quotes

“Then it’s not the past
I yearn for, but the idea
of a time when everything important
has not yet happened:

— Lawrence Raab, from section 5 of “The Uses of Nostalgia,” What We Don’t Know About Each Other (Penguin, 1993)”
― Lawrence Raab, What We Don't Know About Each Other

“The Garden"

We were in the garden talking
about disbelief, how it was
a practical choice—you couldn’t
just decide to believe

as no one could resolve
to fall in love.
We were talking about the past,
the hopes we had for it.

Then there were skies of all kinds,
nights into which we disappeared
leaving the rest for later.
Things were different then, we said,

as if that were not always the truth …
Around us trees
were moving, and the flowers
were ghosts of themselves in the moonlight.
Inside, cool breezes unfolded

throughout the house, room after room,
like a sadness without explanation
although—we might have said it—
just as much like joy.”
― Lawrence Raab, What We Don't Know About Each Other