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Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

Raymond Carver

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Raymond Carver
Age: 50 †
Born: 1938
Born: May 25
Died: 1988
Died: August 2
Author
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Clatskanie
Oregon
Writing
Even
Every
Good
Specifications
World
According
Writer
Makes
Great

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You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.
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All of us, all of us, all of us trying to save our immortal souls, some ways seemingly more round about and mysterious than others. We are having a good time here. But hope all will be revealed soon.
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There is no God, and conversation is a dying art.
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Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.
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You've got to work with your mistakes until they look intended. Understand?
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Ralph also took some classes in philosophy and literature and felt himself on the brink of some kind of huge discovery about himself. But it never came.
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In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldnt turn off the outside world to the extent that I can now.
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Remember Haydn's 104 symphonies. Not all of them were great. But there were 104 of them.
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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.
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There is no answer. It's okay. But even if it wasn't okay, what am I supposed to do?
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Get in, get out. Don't linger. Go on.
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A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house. Except for the chrome hooks, he was an ordinary-looking man of fifty or so.
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Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.
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When a reader finishes a wonderful story and lays it aside, he should have to pause for a minute and collect himself.
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There's literary creation and literary business. When I first got something accepted, it gave my life a validation it didn't otherwise have.
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You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk.
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I'm always learning something. Learning never ends.
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We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.
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There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me.
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What good are insights? They only make things worse.
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