350 Quotes by Alice Munro

Speculation can be more gentle, can take its time, when it is not driven by desire.

Things have changed, ofcourse. There are counsellors at the ready. Kindness and understanding. Life is harder for some, we're told. Not their fault, even if the blows are purely imgainery. Felt just as keenly by the recipient, or the non recipient, as the case may be. But good use can be made of everything, if you are willing.

You think that would have changed things? The answer is of course, and for a while, and never.

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.

The images, the language, of pornography, and romance are alike; monotonous and mechanically seductive, quickly leading to despair.

Row, row, row your boat. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing.

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.

So what about me? Would I always have to find a high horse? The moral relish, the rising above, the being in the right, which can make me flaunt my losses.