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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.

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
Read
Living
Wells
Well
Extent
Writing
Admire
Work
Writers
Like
Whose
Dead

More quotes by Raymond Carver

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It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.
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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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My life is going to change. I feel it.
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I guess my writing has changed as my life has.
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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.
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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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there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.
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Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.
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I'm always learning something. Learning never ends.
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Don’t complain, don’t explain.
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I am a cigarette with a body attached to it
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There is no God, and conversation is a dying art.
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Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate.
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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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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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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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A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.
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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.
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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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