395 Quotes by Lorrie Moore

Like everyone he knew, he could discern the hollowness in people’s charm only when it was directed at someone other than himself.

An agony. The exit like the entrance – but reserved. A palindrome: gut-tug.

If dolphins tasted good,” he said, “we wouldn’t even know about their language.

I didn’t want to, even in my imagination, even for a second, to conflate this sophisticated woman with my mother, a woman so frugal and clueless that she had once given me – to have! to know! to wear! – her stretch black lace underwear that had shrunk in the dryer, though I was only ten.

No wine,” she said. “It leads to cheese.

I realized that life was too short for anyone honestly and thoroughly to outgrow anything, but it was clear that some people were making more of an effort than others.

He had never been involved with the mentally ill before, but he now felt more than ever that there should be strong international laws against them being too good-looking.

I don’t have a love life. I have a like life.

I had seen this exact same expression and movement before – where? In the future I would come to know that look as the beginning of the end of love – the death of a man’s trying. It read as Haughty Fatigue. Like the name of a stripper.