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Write Quotes by Raymond Carver

9 Write quotes by Raymond Carver

All Write quotes Raymond Carver’s page

If you’re curious about how a master of the short story thinks about the act of writing, these nine snippets give you a direct line to his practical, unadorned advice. They’re brief, but each one cuts to the core of what it takes to turn a moment into a story.

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Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?

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You have to have been in love to write poetry.

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Writers will be judged by what they write.

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“Write what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?”

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When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even…

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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…

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In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldn't turn off the outside world to the extent that I can…

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There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about.

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It's something that I feel I know about, relationships between men and women. I like to write from the woman's point of…

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More by Raymond Carver

“Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive. Fear of falling asleep at night. Fear of not falling asleep. Fear of the…

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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…

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“You sound like a nice man,” the woman said. “Do I? Well, that’s nice of you to say.” He knew he should hang up…

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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…

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The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

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A man can go along obeying all the rules and then it don't matter a damn anymore.

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“You see, this happened a few months ago, but it's still going on right now, and it ought to make us feel ashamed when…

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I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to.…

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Art doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it.

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“But here is the thing. When he gets on me, I suddenly feel I am fat. I feel am terrifically fat, so fat that…

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There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about.

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The fiction Im most interested in has lines of reference to the real world.

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Don’t complain, don’t explain.

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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…

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I am a cigarette with a body attached to it

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