Canadian - Writer | July 10, 1931 -
Time is something that interests me a whole lot - past and present, and how the past appears as people change.
Alice Munro
ChangeTimePastPeopleMePresent
I want the reader to feel something is astonishing - not the 'what happens' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.
BestMeStoryShortFeelLong
Writers are always writing about infidelity. It's so dramatic. The wickedness of it, the secrecy, the complications, the finding that you thought you were one person but you're also this other person. The innocent life and the guilty life. My God, it's just full of stuff for a writer. I doubt it will ever go out of fashion.
LifeGodWritingFashionThought
In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.
WorkTimeForwardBackJumpWay
Naturally, my stories are about women - I'm a woman. I don't know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I'm not always sure what is meant by 'feminist.' In the beginning, I used to say, 'Well, of course I'm a feminist.' But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I'm not.
WomenMenBeginningWomanKnowKind
People are more aware now of cities and of different ways of life. I suppose the writing I do is a bit in the past, and I'm not sure it's the kind of writing I would do if I were starting now.
LifePastPeopleWritingNowKind
I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.
TimePeopleWindowBridgeLooking
Some of the stories I admire seem to zero in on one particular time and place. There isn't a rule about this. But there's a tidy sense about many stories I read. In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.
WorkTimeForwardBackPlaceJump
I think, often, people who run away are people who got into things most enthusiastically, and then they want more. They just demand more of life than what is happening in the moment. Sometimes this is a great mistake, as it's always a good deal different than you expect it.
LifeGoodGreatMomentPeopleThink
In those early days, the important thing was the happy ending. I did not tolerate unhappy endings - for my heroines, anyway. And later on, I began to read things like 'Wuthering Heights,' and very, very unhappy endings would take place, so I changed my ideas completely and went in for the tragic, which I enjoyed.
HappyIdeasEndingUnhappyEarly
Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.
MemoryPeopleWayKeepDifferent
Housework never really bothered me... what bothered me about it later was that it was expected to be your life... when you're a housewife, you are constantly interrupted. You have no space in your life. It isn't the fact that you do the laundry.
LifeSpaceMeYouLaundryNever
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Alice Munro quotes