Quotes from Elizabeth Strout

Hope was a cancer inside him. He didn't want it; he did not want it. He could not bear these shoots of tender green hope springing up within him any longer. (45)

She always played his song because whenever she saw him, it was like moving into a warm pocket of air.

And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect: This was true for Jim and Helen, and for Margaret and himself, as well.

But once in a while I see a child crying with the deepest of desperation, and I think it is one of the truest sounds a child can make.

Grief is such a—oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you.

People are lonely, is my point here. Many people can't say to those they know well what it is they feel they might want to say.

He put the blinker on, pulled out onto the avenue. "Well, that was nice," she said, sitting back. They had fun together these days, they really did. It was as if marriage had been a long, complicatd meal, and now there was this lovely dessert.

No one, to my knowledge, has figured out the secret to love. We love imperfectly, Tyler. We all do. Even Jesus wrestled with that. But I think - I think the ability to receive love is as important as the ability to give it. It's one and the same really.

A person gets tired. The mind or the soul or whatever word we have for whatever is not just the body gets tired, and this, I have decided, is—usually, mostly—nature helping us. I was getting tired. I think—but I don't know—that he was getting tired too.

A lot of people don't have families. . . . . But they still have homes.

But we are all mythologies, mysterious. We are all mysteries, is what I mean. This may be the only thing in this world I know to be true.

Black Hawk was taken on a tour of cities after his capture. I read his autobiography as soon as I could. And I remembered the line he said: "How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union--what pieces life took out of you.

They had fun together these days, they really did. It was as if marriage had been a long, complicated meal, and now there was this lovely dessert.

the sense of apology did not go away; it was a tiring thing to carry. —

You just stood up to your mother.... I should think now you could take on the world.

Do I understand that hurt my children feel? I think I do, though they might claim otherwise. But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can't even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: this is mine, this is mine, this is mine.

I have said before: It interests me how we find ways to feel superior to another person, another group of people. It happens everywhere, and all the time. Whatever we call it, I think it's the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down.

Well, widow-comforter, how is she?" Olive spoke in the dark from the bed. "Struggling," he said. "Who isn't?

But Henry was pretty irritating himself, with his steadfast way of remaining naive, as though life were just what a Sears catalogue told you it was: everyone standing around smiling.

People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

God, I love young people," Harmon said. "They get griped about enough. People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

Once every so often—at the very most—I think someone actually chooses something. Otherwise we're following something—we don't even know what it is but we follow it

People could surprise you. Not just their kindness, but also their sudden ability to express things the right way.