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Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver Quotes

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Famous Raymond Carver Quotes

“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. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.”

IfsKnowsFeelsKindLittlesDreamLostLinesMorningKnow HowStrangeInvisibleConsiderationInsomniaAnnihilationSleepyEarly MorningStrange Places
Book:Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories
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“I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.”

WorldBelieveI CanWholeMemoriesLaughingImagineHavensWideIntimacyIntimateImagine ThatOnce Upon A TimeI Loved YouPuke
Book:Elephant and other stories
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“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 everything he writes. It is his world and no other. This is one of the things that distinguishes one writer from another. Not talent. There's plenty of that around. But a writer who has some special way of looking at things and who gives artistic expression to that way of looking: that writer may be around for a time.”

WorldWayGivingWritingMayTalkingSpecialTalentStyleParticularExpressionPlentyArtisticSignaturesArtistic Expression
Book:Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose
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“She serves me a piece of it a few minutes out of the oven. A little steam rises from the slits on top. Sugar and spice - cinnamon - burned into the crust. But she's wearing these dark glasses in the kitchen at ten o'clock in the morning - everything nice - as she watches me break off a piece, bring it to my mouth, and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen, in winter. I fork the pie in and tell myself to stay out of it. She says she loves him. No way could it be worse.”

WayLittlesDarkWatchesBreakMorningPiecesNiceMinutesTenMouthsDaughterWinterGlassesBlowClockKitchenMy DaughterSugarBurnedPieSpicesSteamForksOvensWatch MeSlitsCinnamonBreak OffDark GlassesSugar And Spice
Book:All of Us: The Collected Poems
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“If we're lucky, writer and reader alike, we'll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit for a minute, quietly. Ideally, we'll ponder what we've just written or read; maybe our hearts or intellects will have been moved off the peg just a little from where they were before. Our body temperature will have gone up, or down, by a degree. Then, breathing evenly and steadily once more, we'll collect ourselves, writers and readers alike, get up, "created of warm blood and nerves" as a Chekhov character puts it, and go on to the next thing: Life. Always life.”

IfsWritingHeartLittlesHas BeensTwoCharacterStoriesBodyLastsNextLinesGoneWrittenBloodMinutesGoes OnReaderLuckyDegreesMovedWarmIntellectGet UpBreathingNervesShort StoryTemperaturePonderingChekhovPegBody Temperature
Book:Where I'm Calling From
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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.”

LyingGivenChanceMistakeHalfMorningMinutesBedRainWindowUrgesLiving My LifeTerrificRainyI Live My LifeUnforgivable
Book:All of Us: The Collected Poems
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