There was a danger whenever I was on home ground. It was the danger of seeing my life through other eyes than my own. Seeing it as an ever-increasing roll of words like barbed wire, intricate, bewildering, uncomfortingโset against the rich productions, the food, flowers, and knitted garments, of other womenโs domesticity. It became harder to say that it was worth the trouble.
Alice MunroIf I decided to send this to you, where would I send it? When I think of writing the whole address on the envelope I am paralyzed. It's too painful to think of you in the same place with your life going on in the same way, minus me. And to think of you not there, you somewhere else but I don't know where that is, is worse.
Alice MunroThis is the way you look at the poorest details of the world resurfaced, after you've been driving for a long time -- you feel their singleness and precise location and the forlorn coincidence of you being there to see them.
Alice MunroCountry manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are.
Alice Munro