Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Mooreis an American fiction writer known mainly for her humorous and poignant short stories...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSelf-Help Author
Date of Birth13 January 1957
CityGlens Falls, NY
CountryUnited States of America
adult constant financial life money nonstop problems time year
I've had nonstop financial problems my whole adult life. It's always been a constant balance, year to year: 'Where's the time? Where's the money?'
time women
I think women do write politically all the time. Margaret Atwood does; Doris Lessing does.
characters
I usually grow sick of my short-story characters and think, 'I never want to see you again.'
relationship sarcastic sarcasm
This is what happened in love. One of you cried a lot and then both of you grew sarcastic.
heart eye phones
She was not good on the phone. She needed the face, the pattern of eyes, nose, trembling mouth... People talking were meant to look at a face, the disastrous cupcake of it, the hide-and-seek of the heart dashing across. With a phone, you said words, but you never watched them go in. You saw them off at the airport but never knew whether there was anyone there to greet them when they got off the plane.
pockets shelter
One had to build shelters. One had to make pockets and live inside them.
philosophy eight stupidity
Basically, I realized I was living in that awful stage of life between twenty-six to and thirty-seven known as stupidity. It's when you don't know anything, not even as much as you did when you were younger, and you don't even have a philosophy about all the things you don't know, the way you did when you were twenty or would again when you were thirty-eight.
writing eye air
If I had a staff of even one person, or could tolerate a small amphetamine habit, or entertain the possibility of weekly blood transfusions, or had been married to Vera Nabokov, or had a housespouse of even minimal abilities, a literary life would be easier to bring about. (In my mind I see all your male readers rolling their eyes. But your female ones - what is that? Are they nodding in agreement? Are their fists in the air?)
world stage
All the world's a stage we're going through.
girlfriend school character
Start dating someone who is funny, someone who has what in high school you called a "really great sense of humor" and what now your creative writing class calls "self-contempt giving rise to comic form." Write down all of his jokes, but don't tell him you are doing this. Make up anagrams of his old girlfriend's name and name all of your socially handicapped characters with them. Tell him his old girlfriend is in all of your stories and then watch how funny he can be, see what a really great sense of humor he can have.
writing people mind
I do have people in mind when I write. I don't know precisely who they are, however, or how many of them there are.
insomnia giving prison
I had never feared insomnia before--like prison, wouldn't it just give you more time to read?
writing thinking feet
There was the usual dreaminess, I suppose. Also a shyness that caused me-and others-to notice that I could express myself better by writing than by speaking. This is typical of many writers, I think. What is a drawback in childhood is an asset to a literary life. Not being fluent on one's feet sends one to the page and a habit is born.
breathing play people
I love plays. Even bad ones. I like the fact that actual live, breathing people are standing before you in tense situations that you are not personally responsible for.