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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the nature of time and human expectations, highlighting a sense of longing for change amidst the stagnation of the past.
Raymond Carver's quote captures the essence of human memories and the hope for a better future, contrasting the endlessness of nights that feel both infinite and repetitive. It evokes a sense of existential reflection where individuals grapple with their past while holding onto the aspiration that change is always just around the corner, often projecting their hopes onto the future without truly addressing the present.
In practice
In a motivational speech discussing overcoming past failures and looking forward to future aspirations.
Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read. Fought against it for a minute. Then looked out the window at the rain. And gave over. Put myself entirely in the keep of this rainy morning. Would I live my life over again? Make the same unforgivable mistakes? Yes, given half a chance. Yes.
Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
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.
Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.
When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is.
It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.
There is no easy way to create a world where men and women can live together... But if such a world is created in our lifetime, it will be done by rejecting the racism, materialism, and violence that has characterized Western civilization and especially by working toward a world of brotherhood, cooperation, and peace.
Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.
Finally, the intercom crackles and Hatmitch's acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, 'And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.
We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.
It is not that there are no certainties, it is that it is an absolute certainty that there are no certainties.
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