Alice Munro Quotes

In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictory ideas. In other words, wisdom might be, seem to be, two contradictory ideas both expressed at their highest level and just let to sit in the same cage sort of, vibrating. So, I think as a writer, I'm really never sure of what I really believe.

I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time. I don't think it's one motion unfortunately - I wish we could say it's better, better, better - but I think it's better, bad, better, bad - you know?

When everything is perfectly orderly and understandable, there has to be one thing that puts everything into question.

Ultimately, it's a pretty confusing moment.

The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.

If we have as a clear certainty with which to plan, total uncertainty, then that would be helpful.

No one has the answer: we are answer and question.

I don’t know what I’m looking for.” “What not?” “Because … because … I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn’t be able to look for them.

When Pico [Iyer] talks about home being a place of isolation, I think he's right. But it's the paradox. I think that's why I so love Great Salt Lake. Every day when I look out at that lake, I think, "Ah, paradox" - a body of water than no one can drink. It's the liquid lie of the desert. But I think we have those paradoxes within us and certainly the whole idea of home is windswept with paradox.

I have two answers to everything and one answer to nothing.

Sometimes there are no answers.

We're going to move left and right at the same time.

The truth we have to face about the world we live in is that it's driven by profit, and contradictions and doubts are not profitable. They yield wisdom, but wisdom is not profitable. I find pleasure in doubt, but let's face it, my pleasure is not very profitable. To me, the truth is that things mean many things at once, and all of them opposed to each other, and all of them true.

Logic plus logic equals the illogical. Do you know what I mean?

It's a very confusing era that we're in.

I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time.

The Chinese say, 'It's good to live in interesting times.'

Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.

It is not possible to live in this age if you don't have a sense of many contradictory forces.

Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex.

You may find many contradictory statements and philosophies within my writings. However, to this I will say such is life, for life is full of contradictions.

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.

There's nothing more ironic or contradictory than life itself.

I think if we didn't contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.