The images, the language, of pornography, and romance are alike; monotonous and mechanically seductive, quickly leading to despair.
Alice MunroI want the reader to feel something is astonishing. Not the 'what happens,' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.
Alice MunroWhat 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.
Alice MunroOne stroke of lightning does not have to lead anywhere, but to the next stroke of lightning.
Alice MunroI saw how the forms of love might be maintained with a condemned person but with the love in fact measured and disciplined, because you have to survive. It could be done so discreetly that the object of such care would not suspect, any more than she would suspect the sentence of death itself.
Alice Munro