Elizabeth Strout
Author
1956-01-06
Quotes by Elizabeth Strout
-
society's been drugging its women for years
Read quote -
The appetites of the body were private battles.
Read quote -
He hated dishonesty-- or lack of courage-- more than anything.
Read quote -
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.
Read quote -
What young people didn't know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn't choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered. And so, if this man next to her now was not a man she would have chosen before this time, what did it matter: He most likely wouldn't have chosen her either. 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.
Read quote -
... and that was when I learned that work gets done if you simply do it.
Read quote -
She said that her job as a writer of fiction was to report on the human condition, to tel us who we are and what we think and what we do.
Read quote -
But what Tyler longed for was to have The Feeling arrive; when every flicker of light that touched the dipping branches of a weeping willow, every breath of breeze that bent the grass towards the row of apple trees, every shower of yellow ginko leaves dropping to the ground with such direct and tender sweetness, would fill the minister with profound and irreducible knowledge that God was right there.
Read quote -
It seems to Henry, as he takes his seat in his usual middle pew, that women are far braver than men
Read quote -
People always kept moving, her mother had said, it's the American way. Moving west, moving south, marrying up, marrying down, getting divorced - but moving...
Read quote -
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.
Read quote -
She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at ths age, to tell her he had pitied her for years.
Read quote -
And then as the little plane climbed higher and Olive saw spread out below them fields of bright and tender green in this morning sun, farther out the coastline, the ocean shiny and almost flat, tiny white wakes behind a few lobster boats--then Olive felt something she had not expected to feel again: a sudden surging greediness for life. She leaned forward, peering out the window: sweet pale clouds, the sky as blue as your hat, the new green of the fields, the broad expanse of water--seen from up here it all appeared wondrous, amazing. She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life the way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed.
Read quote -
People always kept moving, her mother had said, it's the American way. Moving west, moving south, marrying up, marrying down, getting divorced - but moving...
Read quote -
It seems to Henry, as he takes his seat in his usual middle pew, that women are far braver than men
Read quote -
... and that was when I learned that work gets done if you simply do it.
Read quote -
She said that her job as a writer of fiction was to report on the human condition, to tel us who we are and what we think and what we do.
Read quote -
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.
Read quote -
But what Tyler longed for was to have The Feeling arrive; when every flicker of light that touched the dipping branches of a weeping willow, every breath of breeze that bent the grass towards the row of apple trees, every shower of yellow ginko leaves dropping to the ground with such direct and tender sweetness, would fill the minister with profound and irreducible knowledge that God was right there.
Read quote -
She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at ths age, to tell her he had pitied her for years.
Read quote