Quotes from Elizabeth Strout

there's not one goddamn person in this world who doesn't have a bad memory or two to take with them through life.

Pam replied that she was too old to worry about being cool, but in fact she did worry about it, and that's one reason it was always nice to see Bobby, who was so uncool as to inhabit—in Pam's mind—his own private condominium of coolness.

That day of the parade in the Village, I think--but I'm not sure--that William and I had a fight. Because I remember him saying, "Button, you just don't get it, do you?" He meant I did not understand that I could be loved, was lovable. Very often he said that when we had a fight. He was the only man to call me "Button." But he was not the last to say the other: You just don't get it, do you?

So—you're a writer. You're an artist.

It's not my job to make readers know what's a narrative voice and not the private view of the author," and that alone made me glad I had come.

He knew the quiet that arrived, the blinding force of panic, and he knew too that each loss brought with it some odd, barely acknowledged sense of relief.

She came to understand that people had to decide, really, how they were going to live.

I feel almost, then, that I can hear within me the sound of my own heart breaking, the way you could hear outside in the open air-when the conditions were exactly right-the corn growing in the fields of my youth...You cannot hear my heart breaking, and I know that part is true, but to me, they are inseparable, the sound of growing corn and the sound of my heart breaking.

This is not the story of my marriage. I cannot tell that story: I cannot take hold of, or lay out for anyone, the many swamps and grasses and pockets of fresh air and dank air that have gone over us.

This authority was why I had fallen in love with William. We crave authority. We do. No matter what anyone says, we crave that sense of authority. Of believing that in the presence of this person we are safe.

Olive can understand why Chris has never bothered having many friends. He is like her that way, can't stand the blah-blah-blah.

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. Her eyes were closed, and throughout her tired self swept waves of gratitude—and regret. She pictured the sunny room, the sun-washed wall, the bayberry outside. It baffled her, the world. She did not want to leave it yet.

Angelina said, "Mom. I don't want you to die. That's the whole thing. You took from me the ability to care for you in your old age, and I wanted to be with you when you died, when you die. Mom. I wanted that.

Please try to understand this: I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me.

In case you haven't noticed, people get hard-hearted against the people they hurt. Because we can't stand it. Literally. To think we did that to someone. I did that. So we think of all the reasons why it's okay we did whatever we did.

on some very fundamental level, I feel invisible in the world.

She felt she had figured something out too late, and that must be the way of life, to get something figured out when it was too late.

no matter what people looked like they still had a desire to undress and cling to each other—the pull of biology

Everyone needs to feel important.

Is he going to be okay?" I said he would most certainly be okay. I emphasized this, because I did not know myself—except what choice did he have, what choice do most of us have, except to be okay?

I could not believe I was sitting in the sky and had to act nonchalant about it. I tried to . But it was astonishing! Lucy Barton's first flight

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. ... Being with Hansel, even if we were lost in the woods, made me feel safe.

She could hear in the darkness of her car how his breathing was quicker now; and her own was, too. She wanted to say their hears were too old for this now; you can't keep doing this to a heart, can't keep expecting your heart to pull through.

Betty was still weeping, but she was smiling more too, and she said, "Oh, it's just a life, Olive." Olive thought about this. She said, "Well, it's your life. It matters.