Canadian - Writer | July 10, 1931 -
The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.
Alice Munro
SimpleEasyNothingMeanWithin
I have never kept diaries. I just remember a lot and am more self-centered than most people.
PeopleRememberMoreNeverJustAm
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.
LifeMotherGirlAgeSadBrave
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 don't know if you remember 'The Little Mermaid,' but it's dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.
LoveSadMeReadingStoryChristian
For a long time, I had the idea that I would do a certain amount of work the best I could, and then I would reach a comfort zone, and I wouldn't be pushed to write more. I would become a different person. It's a surprise to me that this hasn't happened. Your body ages, but your mind is the same.
WorkTimeBestMindMeComfort Zone
That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.
HappyMeThinkGrowingSomething
Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.
MemoryStartStoryLostSometimes
The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they're gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you're going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.
LifeHomeChildrenParentsDeepYou
The stories are not autobiographical, but they're personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I've learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.
FeelKnowObservationPersonalWay
In twenty years I've never had a day when I didn't have to think about someone else's needs. And this means the writing has to be fitted around it.
DayWritingThinkSomeoneNever
'Royal Beatings' was my first story, and it was published in 1977. But I sent all my early stories to 'The New Yorker' in the 1950s, and then I stopped sending for a long time and sent only to magazines in Canada. 'The New Yorker' sent me nice notes, though - penciled, informal messages. They never signed them. They weren't terribly encouraging.
TimeMeStoryLongEarlyCanada
I've often made revisions at that stage that turned out to be mistakes because I wasn't really in the rhythm of the story anymore. I see a little bit of writing that doesn't seem to be doing as much work as it should be doing, and right at the end, I will sort of rev it up. But when I finally read the story again, it seems a bit obtrusive.
WorkMistakesWritingStoryEndSee
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