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Alice Munro Biography

Alice Ann Munro (/ˈælɪs ˌæn mʌnˈroʊ/, née Laidlaw /ˈleɪdlɔː/; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as having revolutionized the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade."

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Alice Munro Quotes

Peoples lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, unfathomable-deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum. . . . What I wanted [to write down] was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together-radiant, everlasting.

Amazing, Pain, Pothole, Smell, Wall, Writing

Things have changed, ofcourse. There are counsellors at the ready. Kindness and understanding. Life is harder for some, we're told. Not their fault, even if the blows are purely imgainery. Felt just as keenly by the recipient, or the non recipient, as the case may be. But good use can be made of everything, if you are willing.

Blow, Fault, Harder, Kindness, Understanding, Use

The skin of everyday appearances stretched over such shamelessness, such consuming explosions of lust.

Lust, Everyday, Skins, Shamelessness, Stretched

This is the day of wonders. The land is covered with trees like a head with hair and behind the ship the sun rises tipping the top trees with light. The sky is clear and shining as a china plate and the water playfully ruffled with wind. Every wisp of fog is gone and the air is full of the resinous smell of the trees. Seabirds are flashing above the sails golden like creatures from Heaven, but the sailors raise a few shots to keep them from the rigging.

Land, Ruffled, Sky, Tipping, Trees, Wind

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.

I'Ve Learned, Know, Stories, Things, Way

I would have a flick of fear, as in a dream when you find yourself in the wrong building or have forgotten the time for the exam and understand that this is only the tip of some shadowy cataclysm or lifelong mistake.

Building, Dream, Fear, Finding Yourself, Mistake, Understand

Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.

Taken, People, Treasure, Waylaid

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.

Cover, Forward, Sometimes, Straightforward, Time, Way

Why is it a surprise to find that people other than ourselves are able to tell lies?

Able, Lies, Lying, People, Tell

You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.

Let, Parent, Parents, Real, Shame

Love removes the world for you, and just as surely when it's going well as when it's going badly.

Badly, Love, Remove, Wells, World

What she felt was a lighthearted sort of compassion, almost like laughter. A swish of tender hilarity, getting the better of all her sores and hollows, for the time given.

Compassion, Hilarity, Hollows, Laughter, Tender

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.

Anecdote, Anecdotes, Final, Memories, Story, Writing

It was at this time that she entirely gave up on reading. The covers of books looked like coffins to her, either shabby or ornate, and what was inside them might as well have been dust.

Book, Books, Covers, Dust, Reading

The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.

Chaos, Endless, Mean, Simple

Now that I think of it, she looked splendid. I wish I had met her somewhere else. I wish I had appreciated her as she deserved. I wish that everything had gone differently.

Deserved, Everything, Looked, Somewhere Else, Thinking, Wish

I was amazed as people must be who are seized and kidnapped, and who realize that in the strange world of their captors they have a value absolutely unconnected with anything they know about themselves.

Captors, People, Seized, Strange, World

The conversation of kisses. Subtle, engrossing, fearless, transforming.

Engrossing, Fearless, Kisses, Kissing, Subtle

He was evidently the sort of person who posed questions that were traps for you to fall into.

Fall, Person, Persons, Questions, Sort, Traps

There were people whom you positively ached to please. If you failed with such people they would put you into a category in their minds where they could kee you and have contempt for you forever.

Contempt, Forever, Kee, Mind, People

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