There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
If we're lucky, writer and reader alike, we'll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
My circumstances of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the short story form. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
It's akin to style, what I'm talking about, but it isn't style alone. It is the writer's particular and unmistakable signature on… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
When I'm fishing, I feel guilty that I'm not writing, and when I'm writing, I feel guilty that I'm not fishing. But… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
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… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
I think marriage is one of those things that writers draw on, one of those emotional reservoirs that go way back. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
When you're writing fiction or poetry... it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you're doing... A young writer… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldnt turn off the outside world to the extent that I can… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldn't turn off the outside world to the extent that I can… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“It was [John Gardner's] conviction that if the words in the story were blurred because of the author's insensitivity, carelessness, or sentimentality,… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“It's possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“I hate tricks. At the first sign of a trick or gimmick in a piece of fiction, a cheap trick or even… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
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… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“Write what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?” — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“V.S. Pritchett's definition of a short story is 'something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.' Notice the 'glimpse' part… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive. Fear of falling asleep at night. Fear of not falling asleep. Fear of the… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
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… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“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… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
A man can go along obeying all the rules and then it don't matter a damn anymore. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“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… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
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.… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
Art doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
“But here is the thing. When he gets on me, I suddenly feel I am fat. I feel am terrifically fat, so fat that… — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
The fiction Im most interested in has lines of reference to the real world. — Raymond Carver Copy Share Image
