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.
And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. - Raymond Carver
And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.
- Raymond Carver
Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that. - Raymond Carver
Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that.
Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets? - Raymond Carver
Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?
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 a liar. - Raymond Carver
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 a liar.
there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails. - Raymond Carver
there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.
Art doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it. - Raymond Carver
Art doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it.
Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from. - Raymond Carver
Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.
You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk. - Raymond Carver
You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk.
That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones. - Raymond Carver
That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.
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