Quotes from Elizabeth Strout

I felt terrible, I have always been frightened of doing something wrong, of being inconsiderate; it is a real fear I have.

He thought of all the people in the world who felt they'd been saved by a city. He was one of them.

And I thought how when William came into money from his grandfather who had profited from the war, and Catherine was still alive at that time, she had said very little about it. But she did say to me, lying on the tangerine couch, not long after this had happened, "It's dirty money. He should give it all away." But William did not give it all away; he became very rich.

Don't I mean Oh Everyone, Oh dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves! — Except a little tiny, tiny bit we do. — But we are all mythologies, mysterious. We are all mysteries, is what I mean. — This may be the only thing in the world I know to be true.

am not invisible no matter how deeply I feel that I am.

He had been petrified by what he saw there in Germany. He must have been deeply haunted by his father's role in it. Unspeakably frightened. It had unmoored him.

Hello, Olive," he said, walking to her. He wanted to put his arms around her, but she had a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away. He told her the Thibodeaus were coming for supper. "It's only right," he said. Olive wiped sweat from her upper lip, turned to rip up a clump of onion grass. "Then that's that, Mr. President," she said. "Give your order to the cook.

So it wasn't me that made him do this, if he did this while married to Joanne and also to Estelle? Then it wasn't because of me? I could not believe this. And I thought about what he had said the night before about choice. He may not have had any choice about this part of him. How do I know?

That's it," said Olive. She began walking, at her pace now. She said over her shoulder, "At least I'm not prejudiced against homosexuals." "No," he called. "Just white men with money." Damn right, she thought.

and she seemed to really listen, I could see her listening, and she responded exactly right somehow. I cannot remember what she said, but I remember thinking, Oh, she is right here with me.

How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

The trees off to the side have been cut down to make a parking lot. You get used to things, he thinks, without getting used to things.

Siempre estamos solos. Nacemos solos. Morimos solos. ¿Qué más da?

For many years, Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy.

You have family," Bob said. "You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That's called family.

When you are truly humbled, that can happen. I have come to notice this in life. You can become bigger or bitter, this is what I think.

Throughout my marriage to William, I had had the image—and this was true even when Catherine was alive, and more so after she died—so often I had the private image of William and me as Hansel and Gretel, two small kids lost in the woods looking for the breadcrumbs that could lead us home.

And she learned—freshly, scorchingly—of the privacy of sorrow. It was as though she had been escorted through a door into some large and private club that she had not even known existed. Women who miscarried. Society did not care much for them. It really didn't.

My job is to help you get into the world, but you do not belong to me.

I have mentioned earlier how easy it is for me to become frightened, and as we drove up this turnpike with barely another car in sight I thought: Oh I wish I had not come! I am afraid of things that are not familiar.

People know exactly who loves them, and how much—

Excuse me, I'm so sorry to bother you, but my name is Lucy and I love you." I could not believe that I had said that! And I said, "Oh I mean I love your music." And the poor man stood there, he was almost my height—which is not tall—and he said, "Well, thank you," and he started to move away. And I said, "No, I'm so sorry, that sounded crazy. I just meant I've loved your music for a few years now.

I could not stop feeling that life as I had known it was gone. Because it was. I knew this was true.

I suspect I said nothing because I was doing what I have done most of my life, which is to cover for the mistakes of others when they don't know they have embarrassed themselves.