Lorrie Moore Quotes

Even a monotonously undeviating path of self-examination does not necessarily lead to self-knowledge. I stumble towards my grave confused and hurt and hungry.

Charlie Brown: "Life is just too much for me... I've been confused right from the day I was born... I think the whole trouble is that we're thrown into life too fast... We're not really prepared..." Linus: "What did you want... A chance to warm up first?"

Have I been wrong? Have I been wise to shut my eyes?

The only thing about myself I know for sure is that I don't know anything.

I know not whence I came, nor whither I go, nor who I am.

Someone asked me once what my philosophy of life was, and I said some crazy thing. I should have said, how the hell do I know?

I had no intention of providing any answers or solutions, because you'd only look a fool, but I did want to talk about what it's like to be in a state where you're wondering. And perhaps I was also receptive to the fact I was entering middle age and those thoughts come - to pretend that they don't come is just crazy.

Quien sabe? Not me. The older I get the less I sabe, the less wisdom, maturity and caution I have.

There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.

The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.

Every year there's a few more things I'm not sure of. I've decided that a wide-ranging uncertainty is the mark of the true maturity of man.

I think, therefore I am confused.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

What happens at 50, more or less, you lose what you need to create another person, to sustain another person; you keep what you need to sustain yourself. And there's something wonderful about that.

My dominant feeling every day is one of great ignorance.

At a certain point, you have to face the fact that you've turned into an old fart.

I wasn't frightened of people, but I didn't have a clue about the adult world.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

When I turned 30, I realized how ignorant I really was. I always thought I had a very accomplished life.

I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out.

I'd never want to go back to being in my twenties or thirties. I was lost and confused and uncomfortable in my own skin.

I look back at my twenties and see that I was much less confident.

As you get older, you don't really have any excuse to be stupid anymore, to be in the dark.