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Don’t complain, don’t explain.

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
Complain
Complaining
Explain

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Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
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This is awful. I don't know what's going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world.
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You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk.
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That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.
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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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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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Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.
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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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Get in, get out. Don't linger. Go on.
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My life is going to change. I feel it.
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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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I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation.
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You've got to work with your mistakes until they look intended. Understand?
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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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I'm always learning something. Learning never ends.
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I guess my writing has changed as my life has.
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What good are insights? They only make things worse.
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My heart is broken,” she goes. “It’s turned to a piece of stone. I’m no good. That’s what’s as bad as anything, that I’m no good anymore.
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