Elizabeth Strout said this 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.

~ Elizabeth Strout

She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at ths age, to tell her he had pitied her for years.

~ Elizabeth Strout

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...

~ Elizabeth Strout

It seems to Henry, as he takes his seat in his usual middle pew, that women are far braver than men

~ Elizabeth Strout