Quote

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

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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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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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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 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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Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
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That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.
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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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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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I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.
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The fiction Im most interested in has lines of reference to the real world.
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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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Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.
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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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Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.
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