Anything Is Possible Quotes

“This was the skin that protected you from the world—this loving of another person you shared your life with.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“To listen to a person is not passive.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“People could surprise you. Not just their kindness, but also their sudden ability to express things the right way.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“the sense of apology did not go away; it was a tiring thing to carry. —”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“Annie, who up until this very day had always felt like a child--which is why she could not marry, she could not be a wife--now felt quietly ancient. She thought how for years onstage she had used the image of walking up the dirt road holding her father's hand, the snow-covered fields spread around them, the woods in the distance, joy spilling through her--how she had used this scene to have tears immediately come to her eyes, for the happiness of it, and the loss of it. And now she wondered if it had even happened, if the road had ever been narrow and dirt, if her father had ever held her hand and said that his family was the most important thing to him.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“society's been drugging its women for years”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“What puzzled Abel about life was how much one forgot but then lived with anyway—like phantom limbs, he supposed.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“And for a moment Annie wondered at this, that her brother and sister, good, responsible, decent, fair-minded, had never known the passion that caused a person to risk everything they had, everything they held dear heedlessly put in danger—simply to be near the white dazzle of the sun that somehow for those moments seemed to leave the earth behind.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“How did you ever know? You never knew anything, and anyone who thought they knew anything - well, they were in for a great big surprise.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“And then later, as the ambulance went faster, Abel felt not fear but a strange exquisite joy, the bliss of things finally and irretrievably out of his control, unpeeled, unpeeling now. Yet there was a streak of something else, as though just outside his reach was the twinkle of a light, as though a Christmas window was there; this puzzled him and pleased him, and in his state of tired ecstasy it seemed almost to come to him.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“They had grown up on shame; it was the nutrient of their soil.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“And so there’s a struggle, or a contest, I guess you could say, all the time, it seems to me. And remorse, well, to be able to show remorse—to be able to be sorry about what we’ve done that’s hurt other people—that keeps us human.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“And if such a gift could come to him at such a time, then anything—dear girl from Rockford dressed up for her meeting, rushing above the Rock River—he opened his eyes, and yes, there it was, the perfect knowledge: Anything was possible for anyone.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“She came to understand that people had to decide, really, how they were going to live.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“But Lucy loved them, she loved her mother, and her mother loved her! We’re all just a mess, Angelina, trying as hard as we can, we love imperfectly, Angelina, but it’s okay.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“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.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“Both of them laughed until they had tears in their eyes, and even then they kept on laughing. But Mary thought: Not one thing lasts forever; still, may Angelina have this moment for the rest of her life.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“They had grown up on shame; it was the nutrient of their soil. Yet, oddly, it was her father she felt she understood the best. And for a moment Annie wondered at this, that her brother and sister, good, responsible, decent, fair-minded, had never known the passion that caused a person to risk everything they had, everything they held dear heedlessly put in danger—simply to be near the white dazzle of the sun that somehow for those moments seemed to leave the earth behind.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“To listen to a person is not passive. To really listen is active, and Dottie had really listened.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“Everyone, she understood, was mainly and mostly interested in themselves.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“He hated dishonesty-- or lack of courage-- more than anything.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“When word came that Keith had died of cancer, Abel was astonished. That astonishment had to do with death, with the wiping out of a person, with the puzzlement that the man was simply gone.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“The Hopper painting hung on the wall with an indifference so vast it began to feel personal, as though it had been painted for this moment: Your troubles are huge and meaningless, it seemed to say, there is only the sun on the side of a house.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“(She did not say, and only fleetingly did she think: And you have always taken up so much space in my heart that it has sometimes felt to be a burden.)”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“There was an old African proverb Dottie had read one day that said, “After a man eats, he becomes shy.” And Dottie thought of that now with Shelly. Shelly was like the man in the proverb; having satisfied her needs, she was ashamed. She had confided more than she had wanted to, and now Dottie was somehow to blame.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything is Possible

“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, Anything is Possible

“It was the tall white windmills that came to her mind. How their skinny long arms all turned, but never together, except for just once in a while two of them would be turning in unison, their arms poised at the same place in the sky.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“Dottie was not a woman to complain, having been taught by her decent Aunt Edna one summer—it seemed like a hundred years ago, and practically was—that a complaining woman was like pushing dirt beneath the fingernails of God, and this was an image Dottie had never been able to fully dislodge.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“Her grandmother said, “Don’t come back. Don’t get married. Don’t have children. All those things will bring you heartache”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible

“He had a friend. He would have said this if he could, he would have said it, but there was no need: Like his sweet Sophia who loved her Snowball, Abel had a friend. And if such a gift could come to him at such a time, then anything-dear girl from Rockford dressed up for her meeting, rushing above the Rock River-he opened his eyes, and yes, there it was, the perfect knowledge: Anything was possible for anyone.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible