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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.

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
Best
Writers
Little
Approach
Many
Danger
Great
Fiction
Least
Imagination
Autobiographical
Become
Autobiography
Littles
Temptation

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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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The fiction Im most interested in has lines of reference to the real world.
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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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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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I dressed and went for a walk - determined not to return until I took in what Nature had to offer.
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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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There is no God, and conversation is a dying art.
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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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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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Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.
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The smooth stones you pick up and examine under the moon's light have been made blue from the sea. Next morning when you pull them from your trouser pocket, they are still blue.
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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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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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There is no answer. It's okay. But even if it wasn't okay, what am I supposed to do?
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