Raymond Carver

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.

I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.

It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

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.

Don’t complain, don’t explain.

Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.

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

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.