Merredith Branscombe

“Never underestimate the meanness in people's souls... Even when they're being kind... especially when they're being kind.”
― Alice Munro

“There is a limit to the amount of misery and disarray you will put up with, for love, just as there is a limit to the amount of mess you can stand around a house. You can't know the limit beforehand, but you will know when you've reached it. I believe this.”
― Alice Munro

“Because if she let go of her grief even for a minute it would only hit her harder when she bumped into it again. ”
― Alice Munro, Away from Her

“Like Jordan Baker, people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named co-respondent. In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem