395 Quotes by Lorrie Moore

The night before, a whole day could have shape and design. But when it was upon you, it could vanish tragically to air.

She believes you can refuse to participate in certain emotions. “I like hamburgers but I don’t eat them,” she says. “Hamburgers are not an emotion,” says Roz. “Yes they are,” says Charis.

Unfortunately, you have lost the respect of all but one of your co-workers and many of your superiors as well, who are working in order to send their daughters to universities so they won’t have to be secretaries, and who, therefore, hold you in contempt for having a degree and being a failure anyway. It is like having a degree in failure.

I’ve accrued a kind of patience, I believe, loosely like change.

Everything one reads is nourishment of some sort – good food or junk food – and one assumes it all goes in and has its way with your brain cells.

Life is sad, I thought. Here is someone.

She was unequal to anyone’s wistfulness. She had made too little of her life. Its loneliness shamed her like a crime.

Don’t mistake a lack of sophistication for sweetness.

One should never turn one’s back on a vivid imagination.