A Quote by Raymond Carver

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising. — © Raymond Carver
Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.
At the heart of each spiritual tradition is the question of how to be in the world without losing what matters, and whether living an awakened life is of any use if we don't bring what matters to bear on the world.
Of all living things, only humans consciously anticipate death; the consequent need to choose how to behave in its face - to worry about how to die - distinguishes us from other animals. The need to manage death is the particular lot of humanity.
When you have children your own hypocrisy becomes more apparent because you're telling them how to behave, and you're not behaving like that yourself. So it obliges one to really go in and try to look at why there is a huge gulf between how one knows one wants to behave and how one actually does behave.
Time, how short-eternity, how long! Death, how brief-immortali ty, how endless!
The question you must answer isn't how to get ahead. It's how to go somewhere that matters. And have fun along the way.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters-first and foremost-how they behave.
To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic.
Many things in your life matter, but only one thing matters absolutely.It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It matters whether you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated or not educated. It matter whether you are rich or poor - it certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these things matter, relatively speaking, but they don't matter absolutely.There is something that matters more than any of those things and that is finding the essence of who you are beyond that short-lived entity, that short-lived personalized sense of self.
Science tries to answer the question: "How?" How do cells act in the body? How do you design an airplane that will fly faster thansound? How is a molecule of insulin constructed? Religion, by contrast, tries to answer the question: "Why?" Why was man created? Why ought I to tell the truth? Why must there be sorrow or pain or death? Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why.
I want people to think about movies and how we watch them. Let them know it's okay to question the structure or how we're sometimes duped into a false sense of normalcy. Most of all, I want people to question the old standard practices of, 'This is how the structure of something should work,' or, 'This is how a character must behave.'
It matters more how governments behave than how big they are.
Believe me, I go and go, 'cause I know how short life is, and I know how very blessed all of us are to be here and how very short it is.
We are going to die, as is everyone we adore - I hate this! But the question is, how do we live as women and men in the face of this? Why do we let ourselves be so distracted and obsessed by meaningless B.S. in light of having one short, precious life? When are we going to wake up and be fully alive to each other and nature and magic and wonder and Life with a capital L? When will we stop hitting the snooze button? And then, how alive are we willing to be?
Generally, I've never known quite how to fit in in civilian life, but on set, making a film, I know exactly where to go, how to behave and how I fit.
I really try at least to come back and answer the question as to whether that was really the best way to do that and was I really thinking straight and how did my opponents behave and how did the judges behave was needed.
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