Quotes by Lorrie Moore

“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...”

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

“But she had no memory of how to be brave. Here, it seemed, she had no memories at all. Nothing triggered them. And once in a while, when shegave voice to the fleeting edge of one, it seemed like so...”

“As a vacuum cleaner can start to pull up the actual thread of a carpet, her brains had been sucked dry by too much yoga.”

“Where? The woman scowled, bewildered.Iowa, Agnes repeated loudly.The woman in black touched Agnes's wrist and leaned in confidentially. She moved her mouth in a concerned and exaggerated way, like ...”

“The United States- how can you live in that country? the man had asked. Agnes had shrugged. A lot of my stuff is there, she'd said, and it was then that she first felt all the dark love and shame t...”

“Every arrangement in life carried with it the sadness, the sentimental shadow, of its not being something else, but only itself.”

“Every songwriter in their smallest song seems to possess some monumental grief clarified and dignified by melody, Bill thinks. His own sadnesses, on the other hand, slosh about in his life in a low...”