Quotes by Lorrie Moore

“My new apartment might be a place where there are lots of children. They might gather on my porch to play, and when I step out for groceries, they will ask me, "Hi, do you have any kids?" and then,...”

“When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher who said to me, 'Women writers should marry somebody who thinks writing is cute. Because if they really realised what writing was, they would run a mi...”

“I've never been to a dinner party where everyone at the dinner table didn't say something funny.”

“You know, I'm just a very boring, not very funny person in person. I don't feel pressured to be otherwise.”

“I don't sit down to write a funny story. Every single thing I sit down to write is meant to be sad.”

“Guns, she was reminded then, were not for girls. They were for boys. They were invented by boys. They were invented by boys who had never gotten over their disappointment that accompanying their ow...”

“I watched my friend Eleanor give birth," she said. "Once you've seen a child born, you realize a baby's not much more than a reconstituted ham and cheese sandwich. Just a little anagram of you and ...”

“She hated money! though she knew it was like blood and you needed it. Still, it was also like blood in that she often couldn't stand the sight of it.”

“So much urgent and lifelike love went rumbling around underground and died there, never got expressed at all, so let some errant inconvenient attraction have its way. There was so little time”

“Every family is a family of alligators.”

“Surely that was why faith had been invented: to raise teenagers without dying. Although of course it was also why death was invented: to escape teenagers altogether.”

“He began to prefer talking on the phone to actually getting together with someone, preferred the bodilessness of it, and started to turn down social engagements. He didn't want to actually sit acro...”

“Humor comes from the surprise release of some buried tension.”

“This is what happened in love. One of you cried a lot and then both of you grew sarcastic.”

“They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.”

“She knew there were only small joys in life--the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through--and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off.”

“I don’t go back and look at my early work, because the last time I did, many years ago, it left me cringing. If one publishes, then one is creating a public record of Learning to Write.”

“Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world ...”

“Back at home, days later, feel cranky and tired. Sit on the couch and tell him he's stupid. That you bet he doesn't know who Coriolanus is. That since you moved in you've noticed he rarely reads. H...”

“The night before, a whole day could have shape and design. But when it was upon you, it could vanish tragically to air.”