Quotes by Alice Munro

I dont think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when Im enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was The Little Mermaid, and I dont know if you remember The Little Mermaid, but its dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.

“It almost seemed as if there must be some random and of course unfair thrift in the emotional housekeeping of the world, if the great happiness--however temporary, however flimsy--of one person could come out of the great unhappiness of another.”

“She did not have time to wonder about his being late. He died bent over the sidewalk sign that stood out in front of the hardware store... He had not even had time to get into the store...”