Alice Munro Quotes

But I Never Cleaned Thoroughly Enough, My Reorganization Proved To Be Haphazard, The Disgraces Came Unfailingly To Light, And It Was Clear How We Failed, How Disastrously We Fell Short Of That Ideal Of Order And Cleanliness, Household Decency Which I As Much As Anybody Else Believed In.

Luck Took Me Right Out Of Myself - I Read It In One Gulp, And It Never Let Me Down. Sharp And Surprising But Always Responsible, No Tricks For Tricks' Sake; So Satisfying, With Its Shifting And Puzzles. So Much Fiction Turns Out To Be Diversion, In Spite Of Fancy Claims, And Doesn't Really Look At Anything. Well - This Does.

The Deep, Personal Material Of The Latter Half Of Your Life Is Your Children. You Can Write About Your Parents When They're Gone, But Your Children Are Still Going To Be Here, And You're Going To Want Them To Come And Visit You In The Nursing Home.

When I Told Him On The Phone That After All You And I Would Not Be Getting Married, He Said "oh-oh. Do You Think You'll Ever Manage To Get Another One?" If I'd Objected To His Saying That He Would Naturally Have Said It Was A Joke. And It Was A Joke. I Have Not Managed To Get Another One But Perhaps Have Not Been In The Best Condition To Try.

She Sits In Her Usual Ample Armchair, With Piles Of Books And Unopened Magazines Around Her. She Sips Cautiously From The Mug Of Weak Herb Tea Which Is Now Her Substitute For Coffee. At One Time She Thought That She Could Not Live Without Coffee, But It Turned Out That It Is Really The Warm Large Mug She Wants In Her Hands, That Is The Aid To Thought Or Whatever It Is She Practices Through The Procession Of Hours, Or Of Days.

You Want In All Cases For The Story To Get Through The Writing.

I Despised Their Antics Because I Took Life Seriously And Had A Much More Lofty And Tender Notion Of Romance. But I Would Have Liked To Get Their Attention Just The Same.

She Keeps On Hoping From A Word From Penelope, But Not In Any Strenuous Way. She Hopes As People Who Know Better Hope For Undeserved Blessings, Spontaneous Remissions, Things Of That Sort.

Children Of Course Are Monstrously Conventional, Repelled At Once By Whatever Is Off-center, Out Of Whack, Unmanageable. And Being An Only Child I Had Been Coddled A Good Deal (also Scolded). I Was Awkward, Precocious, Timid, Full Of My Private Rituals And Aversions.

I Just Believed It Easily, The Way You Might Believe And In Fact Remember That You Once Had Another Set Of Teeth, Now Vanished But Real In Spite Of That. Until One Day, One Day When I May Even Have Been In My Teens, I Knew With A Dim Sort Of Hole In My Insides That Now I Didn't Believe It Anymore.

This Is The Day Of Wonders. The Land Is Covered With Trees Like A Head With Hair And Behind The Ship The Sun Rises Tipping The Top Trees With Light. The Sky Is Clear And Shining As A China Plate And The Water Playfully Ruffled With Wind. Every Wisp Of Fog Is Gone And The Air Is Full Of The Resinous Smell Of The Trees. Seabirds Are Flashing Above The Sails Golden Like Creatures From Heaven, But The Sailors Raise A Few Shots To Keep Them From The Rigging.

I Was Amazed As People Must Be Who Are Seized And Kidnapped, And Who Realize That In The Strange World Of Their Captors They Have A Value Absolutely Unconnected With Anything They Know About Themselves.