Alice Munro Quotes

I think a single woman's biggest problem is coping with the people who are trying to marry her off!

There isn't anyone who wants to see me married more than I do.

Even in this day and age, if you're not married, there are people who are like, 'Awww! Don't worry, it'll happen for you someday.'

if you get married they think you're finished and if you are without a woman they think you're incomplete.

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to think of being married soon, and I should like everything to go on for a long while just as it is.

At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will. At thirty, they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact.

I think maybe the reason I have spent most of my life being afraid is that I have been trying to prepare myself to train my body for real fear when it comes. But I am not prepared.

I'm still going on bad dates when by now I should be in a bad marriage.

The business of Mr. Bennett's life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennett's was to get them married.

It constantly remains a source of disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome at once. To make progress is a kind of miner’s work; it doesn’t advance as quickly as one would like, and as others also expect, but as one stands before such a task, the basic necessities are patience and faithfulness. In fact, I do not think much about the difficulties, because if one thought of them too much one would get stunned or disturbed.

Nothing's true that I say, because I don't really want to say anything. I don't think my life's that cool, and I don't think my opinion's that valid. They're just silly jokes. Usually I just take a topic that isn't funny at all, like Shakespeare, and work backwards. I just try to find an unfunny subject.

I think there probably was a time when I was less provocative. That's when I was married.

I try not to do email; I try to talk to people on the phone.

It is terribly hard to be married, harder than anything. I think one has to be an angel.

I'll have no husband, if you be not he.

You decide if you're ready for something. It can come in the guise of, "Oh, I don't think I like this."

Women come into marriage with great inflated expectations for what they want this relationship to be, and men don't give it that much thought. Men come into it with reluctance about being capsized or trapped or whatever their fear is. When you check in later, women are disappointed because their expectations have not come to pass, and men are pleasantly surprised.

When you're a woman in your thirties, and maybe you don't really know what you want to do with your life, but it seems like everyone else does, and your best friend gets married, and it forces you to look at yourself. I don't know if I described that in a very funny way.

And I laugh at myself for thinking I could touch the sky.

As a single couple, we are no longer able to hang around with married couples 'cause they cannot be in our presence without getting very annoying. It's always like, 'So, when are you guys getting married? Huh? When are you getting married? When are you guys getting married?!' I dunno, you're married - when are you gonna die? You're already married, death will be next. When are you gonna die?

I always think I don't do the first one good, so I try to do it more.

I think with any sort of rejection, you're angry that you weren't enough for that person. So I don't know if I'm angry at myself for not being enough, or if I'm angry at him for not considering me to be enough.

I think it's just different to get married for a woman than it is for a man. The amount of work to overcome certain gender roles in the partnership - just the expectation of housework, kid-work, whatever it is.

When I hear Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come', it frustrates me because no matter how hard I try, I can never be that good.