Alice Munro Quotes

You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writing. My answer is most emphatically yes. I would go on writing for company. Because I'm creating an imaginary - it's always imaginary - world in which I would like to live.

The world that is in me is the only world I have by which to grasp the world outside and as I write fiction, it is the chart by which I must steer.

The great thing about writing is, if you don't like the world, we'll create a different one.

One of the beauties of being an artist is that you can create a whole new world, with circumstances that are better in your invented world than they are in the real world.

It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.

I write. I imagine. The act of imagining in itself enlivens me. I am not frozen and paralyzed before the predator. I invent characters. At times I feel as if I am digging up people from the ice in which reality enshrouded them, but maybe, more than anything else, it is myself that I am now digging up.

A friend of mine who writes history books said to me that he thought that the two creatures most to be pitied were the spider and the novelist - their lives hanging by a thread spun out of their own guts. But in some ways I think writers of fiction are the creatures most to be envied, because who else besides the spider is allowed to take that fragile thread and weave it into a pattern? What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it to create some semblance of order.

Now begins to rise in me the familiar rhythm; words that have lain dormant now lift, now toss their crests, and fall and rise, and falls again. I am a poet, yes. Surely I am a great poet.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to.

I loved the world of imagination.

I would be pleased if someone would invent a pill to remove my impatience, moodiness, and occasional bursts of anger. But if they did, I wouldn't be able to write my novels or paint.

I feel like I have so many stories basting in my mind, and they come busting out when they're ready.

In the domain of art there is no light without heat.

Personally I kept my feelings out of it and created a fantasy. That's the process of going through this world being beautiful.

I'm still writing in my old age. And still loving it. It fills my days. Writing is my salvation. I just get up in the morning, and I'm in this world that I scratch out and begin again and write over - and then suddenly it's lunchtime, and I'm back.

Personally there is first: imagination; second: the act of writing - and third: the act/act of vocalizing.

I find it painful when I'm without anything. But I work in multiple fields. If I can't write, I find myself taking photographs. I can go on the road and perform. But the most important thing for me is writing, and when I hit those walls, it's painful.

Writing songs always trumps whatever else was on the schedule, it really is the most important and can be so fickle, you have to grab it when it's there.

I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.

The best I do, if I'm just playing around and riffing in a fantasy world, and then I'll write something down. Hopefully I write it down.

Most people just want to be part of the world, they want to live, love, and enjoy themselves - to take part in the world around them. Whereas artists are always retreating, locking the door, and inventing other worlds.

At a young age, I really wanted to make music and make my own sort of thing. I'm sure if it wasn't music, it would have been writing, or it would have been maybe painting. I just always had the drive to try and make something with my hands and to just pull something out of myself and shape it and see it in front of me, if that makes any sense.

When you write, you want to get rid of the world, don’t you? Of course you do. When you’re writing, you’re creating your own worlds.

Painting is like breathing to me. It’s what I do all the time. Every day I make art, whether it is painting, writing or making a movie.

I've always had a really great time being in movies and writing music when I get home. The more creative I am, the more it feeds into other creative aspects of my life.