Elephant and Other Stories Quotes

“I’d like to go out in the front yard and shout something. “None of this is worth it!” That’s what I’d like people to hear.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“I wish I could be like everybody else in this neighborhood--your basic, normal, unaccomplished person-and go up to my bedroom, and lie down, and sleep. It's going to be a big day today, and I'd like to be ready for it. I wish I could sleep and wake up and find everything in my life different. Not necessarily just the big things,.... but things clearly within my power.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“I don't want to talk to anybody. Actually, I'd talk to Molly, if I could, but I can't any longer — she's somebody else now. She isn't Molly any more. But — what can I say? — I'm somebody else, too.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“Two days ago, in the afternoon, Amanda said to me, "I can't read books any more. Who has the time?" It was the day after Oliver had left, and we were in this little café in the industrial part of the city. "Who can concentrate any more?" she said, stirring her coffee. "Who reads? Do you read?" (I shook my head.) "Somebody must read, I guess. You see all these books around in store windows, and there are those clubs. Somebody's reading," she said. "Who? I don't know anybody who reads.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“I'd like to go out in the front yard and shout something. "None of this is worth it!" That's what I'd like people to hear.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“In his better moments, Mr Baxter is a decent, ordinary guy — a guy you wouldn't mistake for anyone special. But he is special. In my book, he is. For one thing he has a full night's sleep behind him, and he's just embraced his wife before leaving for work. But even before he goes, he's already expected home a set number of hours later. True, in the grander scheme of things, his return will be an event of small moment — but an event nonetheless.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“I'd like to go out in the front yard and shout something. 'None of this is worth it!' That's what I'd like people to hear.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“You know what? I think if you were on fire right now, if you suddenly burst into flame this
minute, I wouldn't throw a bucket of water on you.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories

“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.”
― Raymond Carver, Elephant and Other Stories