“We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.”

— Raymond Carver

Source: Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up." by Raymond Carver?

Raymond Carver 51

American short story author and poet 1938–1988

Related quotes

“We got up at four in the morning, that first day in the east. On the evening before we had climbed off a freight train at the edge of town, and with the true instinct of Kentucky boys had found our way across town and to the race track and the stables at once. Then we knew we were all right.”

Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) writer

"I Want to Know Why"
The Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories (1921)

“We are reading the story of our lives
As though we were in it
As though we had written it.”

Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.”

Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (1956) former Royal Saudi Air Force pilot who flew aboard the American STS-51-G Space Shuttle mission as a payload spec…

Opening remarks at the First Congress of the Association of Space Explorers, held in Cernay, France. (2 October 1985) I Congress, Association of Space Explorers, 2012-06-21, en http://www.space-explorers.org/congress/congress1.html,

“Standing at the edge of our city, a man could feel that we had made this place of streets and dwellings in the stillness of the desert, and that we had done a brave thing… Or a man could feel that we had made this city in the desert and that it was a fake thing and that our lives were empty lives, and that we were the contemporaries of the jack rabbits.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

As quoted in "Saroyan's Literary Quarantine" http://www.cilicia.com/armo22_william_saroyan_2.html by Peter H. King, in The Los Angeles Times (26 March 1997).

“Civilians are only morally bound to salute our flag. We are legally bound. All Americans are morally bound to die for our flag, if called upon. Only we are legally bound. Only we live our lives in a day to day readiness for that sacrifice.”

Richard McKenna book The Sand Pebbles

Source: The Sand Pebbles (1962), Ch. 5; speech of Lt. Collins
Context: Civilians are only morally bound to salute our flag. We are legally bound. All Americans are morally bound to die for our flag, if called upon. Only we are legally bound. Only we live our lives in a day to day readiness for that sacrifice. We have sworn our oaths and cut our ties. We have given up wealth and home life, except as San Pablo is our home. It marks us. It sets us apart. We are uncomfortable reminders, in time of peace. Those of you who served in the last war know what I mean.