{"author":"Elizabeth Strout","author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout","total_quotes":32,"quotes":[{"text":"I never wrote him. I never saw him again. He was just gone, this dear, dear man, this friend of my soul in the hospital so long ago, disappeared. This is a New York story too.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["new-york-city"],"id":15982,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"By the time they were pulling into the parking lot of the A\u0026P, the mood was fading, the moment gone. Amy could feel it go. Perhaps it was nothing more than the two doughnuts expanding in her stomach full of milk, but Amy felt a heaviness begin, a familiar turning of some inward tide. As they drove over the bridge the sun seemed to move from a cheerful daytime yellow to an early-evening gold; painful how the gold light hit the riverbanks, rich and sorrowful, drawing from Amy some longing, a craving for joy.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["longing","sadness","sunset"],"id":31629,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"And he looked at me then, and with real kindness on his face, and I see now that he recognized what I did not: that in spite of my plenitude, I was lonely. Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["loneliness"],"id":35441,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"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.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["heartbreak","memories-of-childhood"],"id":37127,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"She pictured a dandelion gone by, the white, almost airless pieces of her family scattered so far.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["family-relationships"],"id":41127,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"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.\tAnd 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.\tHer 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.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["growing-older","marriage"],"id":43587,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"She had spells of manic loquaciousness, followed by days of silence.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["mental-illness"],"id":63496,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"Jim. If you have any other outside events, don’t confess them. That’s my advice, okay?”“What am I going to do, Bob? I have no family.”“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.”Jim fell asleep, his head leaning forward almost to his chest.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["dialogue","life-experience"],"id":70022,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"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.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["marriage"],"id":71039,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"},{"text":"There are times now, and my life has changed so completely, that I think back on the early years and I find myself thinking: It was not that bad. Perhaps it was not. But there are times, too—unexpected—when walking down a sunny sidewalk, or watching the top of a tree bend in the wind, or seeing a November sky close down over the East River, I am suddenly filled with the knowledge of darkness so deep that a sound might escape from my mouth, and I will step into the nearest clothing store and talk with a stranger about the shape of sweaters newly arrived. This must be the way most of us maneuver through the world, half knowing, half not, visited by memories that can’t possibly be true. But when I see others walking with confidence down the sidewalk, as though they are free completely from terror, I realize I don’t know how others are. So much of life seems speculation.","author":"Elizabeth Strout","tags":["life","memories"],"id":99159,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Strout"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":32,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}