Quotes from Alice Munro

and there was still a lot of soft snow in the bush. We

She said something I couldn't make out. She spoke in a childish voice. She was complaining, the way you complain about something that isn't fair. You say over and over that something isn't fair, but in a hopeless voice, as if you don't expect the thing that isn't fair to be righted. Mean is another word to be made use of in these circumstances. It's so mean. Somebody has been so mean. (P. 294)

Peoples lives, in Jubilee and elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing and unfathomable - deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum.

Doing this was like wading and then throwing yourself into the lake for the first icy swim, in June. A sickening shock at first, then amazement that you were still moving, lifted up on a stream of steely devotion— calm above the surface of your life, surviving, though the pain of the cold continued to wash into your body.

Sex meant nothing to him, or at any rate it did not mean what it meant (had meant) to her...

Inside that self we knew, which might at times appear blurred a bit, or sidetracked, she kept her younger selves strenuous and hopeful; scenes from the past were liable to pop up any time, like lantern slides, against the cluttered fabric of the present.

The thing that was your bright treasure. You don't think about it. A loss you could not contemplate at one time, and now it becomes something you can barely remember

Quienes recibían las visitas iban en sillas de ruedas, cojeaban apoyados en un bastón o caminaban con rigidez, sin ayuda, a la cabeza de la procesión, orgullosos del logro pero con la mirada perdida o babeando irremisiblemente por el esfuerzo.

I had the feeling that if she could have moved all around me, been in front and behind and on both sides at once, that was what she would do. She would close me off, she would peer into me until she found whatever she wanted, and got it rearranged.

Takich okresów nie tyle siÄ™ ?aÅ'owaÅ'o, ile siÄ™ je skreÅ›laÅ'o. I wydawaÅ'o mi siÄ™, ?e teraz jakaÅ› cz??? mnie - chora cz???? - zostaÅ'a skreÅ›lona. (...) ZahibernowaÅ'am siÄ™ i wegetowaÅ'am w postaci dawnego ja: upartego jak osioÅ', niekobiecego, nieracjonalnie skrytego. (...) Nie byÅ'am dziwolÄ…giem. ByÅ'am normalna.

Cuando el destino de una persona es tener un único compañero sentimental en la vida no hay por qué convertirlo en nada especial, ya lo es en sí mismo.

Hay algo que creo que deberías saber. Esta puede ser una de las frases más desagradables que puede escuchar una persona. Existen muchas probabilidades de que lo que deberías saber te resulte gravoso, y de que se insinúe que otras personas han tenido que soportar la carga mientras que tú te has librado todo ese tiempo.

Ch?ng ph?i h?u h?t con ng??i ai cÅ©ng c?m th?y th?, không lúc này thì cÅ©ng lúc kia? Cô Ä'Æ¡n và b?t h?nh?

El Mundo me considera un Monstruo y no tengo nada en contra de eso, aunque de paso podría decir que a los que sueltan bombas o queman ciudades o matan de hambre o asesinan a cientos de miles de personas normalmente no se los considera Monstruos sino que les llueven medallas y honores, pues solo los actos contra pocas personas se consideran malos y terribles. Lo cual no es una excusa sino una simple observación.

Why is there always this twitchiness, when you introduce a man to a woman friend, about whether the man will be bored or put off?

Her teeth were crowded to the front of her mouth as if they were ready for an argument

Now there were grown men and women who would try to look like teen-agers until

Aunt Elspeth and Auntie Grace stood in their doorway, ceremoniously, to watch me go, and I felt as if I were a ship with their hope on it, dropping down over the horizon.

And where there is snow most people recognize the fact of winter and take more than half-hearted measures to keep their houses warm.

If you live long enough as a parent nowadays, you discover that you have made mistakes you didn't bother to know about along with the ones you do know about all too well. You are somewhat humbled at heart, sometimes disgusted with yourself.

Escribir es duro, pero cuánto más escribes, y cuánto más disfrutas lo que escribes, mejor se vuelve.

Children Katy's age had no problem with monotony. In fact they embraced it, diving into it and wrapping the familiar words round their tongues as if they were a candy that could last forever.

That isn't an expression that means anything to me, really. Make a fool of yourself. How can anybody do that? How can you make a fool? Show the fool, yes, expose the fool, but isn't the fool just yourself, isn't it there all the time? Show yourself. What else can you do?

I don't take up the story and follow it as if it were a road, taking me somewhere... I go into it, and move back and forth and settle here and there, and stay in it for a while. It is more like a house. Alice Munro on reading.