Lorrie Moore Quotes

Living did not mean one joy piled upon another. It was merely the hope for less pain, hope played like a playing card upon another hope, a wish for kindnesses and mercies to emerge like kings and queens in an unexpected change of the game. One could hold the cards oneself or not: they would land the same regardless.

Let's make our own way,' says the Mother, 'and not in this boat.

Divorce, she could see, would be like marriage - a power grab, as in who would be the dog, and who would be the owner of the dog.

This was what Dennis had been doing lately: granting everyone permission to feel the way they were going to feel regardless. It was the books. Dennis’s relationship to his own feelings had become tender, curatorial. Dismantling. Entomological. Mave couldn’t be like that. She treated her emotional life the way she treated her car: She let it go, let it tough it out. To friends she said things like “I know you’re thinking this looks like a ’79, but it’s really an ’87.” She finally didn’t care to understand all that much about her emotional life; she just went ahead and did it. The point, she thought, was to attend the meager theater of it, quietly, and not stand up in the middle and shout, “Oh, my God, you can see the crew backstage!” There was a point at which the study of something became a frightening and naive thing.

Usually she ordered a cup of coffee and a cup of tea, as well as a brownie, propping up her sadness with chocolate and caffeine so that it became an anxiety.

But it would be like going to Heaven and not finding any of your friends there. Her life would go all beatific and empty in the eyes.

Oh," she said. "I wasn't going to ask, but then you never said anything about it, so I thought I'd ask.""How about you?""Not me," said Odette. She had a poem about marriage. It began, Marriage is the death you want to die, and in front of audiences she never read it with much conviction. Usually she swung her foot back and forth through the whole thing.

The night before, a whole day could have shape and design. But when it was upon you, it could vanish tragically to air.