350 Quotes by Alice Munro

The work of poetry that it seemed she had been doing in her head for most of her life.

For some reason he thinks of Diane in her unbecoming red ski jacket and decides that her life is her life, there is not much use worrying about it. And he thinks of his wife, pretending to laugh at the television. Her quietness.

We had a hard life but we didn’t know it... We had power... it’s a power of transformation you have, when you’re stuffed full of fear and eagerness – not a thing in your life can escape being momentous. A power you never think of losing because you never know you have it.

Poverty in girls is not attractive unless combined with sweet sluttishness, stupidity.

I think that this is minor. Things will happen in your life – things will probably happen in your life – that will make this seem minor. Other things you’ll be able to feel guilty about.

The Shubert grandparents. No comfort there. He in uniform, she in a ball gown, displaying absurd self-satisfaction. They had got what they wanted, Sophia supposed, and had only contempt for those not so conniving or so lucky.

A certain kind of seriousness in a girl could cancel out looks.

Her father was outraged. “Now you sell your stories, how soon before you will sell yourself?

How can you get your finger on it, feel that life beating? It was more a torment than a comfort to think about this, because I couldn’t get hold of it at all. I.