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

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

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

- Raymond Carver

there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.

- Raymond Carver

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

- Raymond Carver

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

- Raymond Carver

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.

- Raymond Carver

You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk.

- Raymond Carver