“Up in Shirley Falls, spring was slower to arrive. Nights were cold, but the way the dawn light cracked open along the horizon, bringing a gentle moistness that lightly touched the skin, spoke of a full-throated summer to come, and… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
Back and forth she went each morning by the river, spring arriving once again; foolish, foolish spring, breaking open its tiny buds, and what she couldn’t stand was how—for many years, really—she had been made happy by such a thing.… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
By the time they were pulling into the parking lot of the A&P, the mood was fading, the moment gone. Amy could feel it… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
“what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
“I said on the phone to my mother, “I think I’m going to write the story of the Burgess kids.” “It’s a good one,”… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
“And she learned - freshly, scorchingly - of the privacy of sorrow. It was as though she had been escorted through a door into… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
“He looked at the books, and she wanted to say, 'Stop that,' as though he were reading her diary.” — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
“The year that followed - was it the happiest year of his own life? He often thought so, even knowing that such a thing… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
I have to pay attention to what I have felt and observed, then push these responses to an extreme while keeping the story within… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
“She could hear in the darkness of her car how his breathing was quicker now; and her own was, too. She wanted to say… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
“Abdikarim shook his head in his darkened room, sweat coming from his face down onto his neck. “No, he cuts my heart. You didn’t… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
I like people a lot, but I am not comfortable in literary New York situations. There is deep anxiety and tension around success here.… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
The fact of the matter is I always have a really high sense of responsibility to the reader, whether it's a few readers that… — Elizabeth Strout Copy Share Image
