Olive, Again Quotes

“I think our job--maybe even our 'duty'--is to--To bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“Because in February the days were really getting longer and you could see it, if you really looked. You could see how at the end of each day the world seemed cracked open and the extra light made its way across the stark trees, and promised. It promised, that light, and what a thing that was.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“But we’re both old enough to know things now, and that’s good.” “What things?” “When to shut up, mainly.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“When you get old,” Olive told Andrea after the girl had walked away, “you become invisible. It’s just the truth. And yet it’s freeing in a way.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect: This was true for Jim and Helen, and for Margaret and himself, as well.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“God, Olive, you’re a difficult woman. You are such a goddamn difficult woman, and fuck all, I love you. So if you don’t mind, Olive, maybe you could be a little less Olive with me, even if it means being a little more Olive with others. Because I love you, and we don’t have much time.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“What frightened him was how much of his life he had lived without knowing who he was or what he was doing. It caused him to feel an inner trembling, and he could not quite find the words—for himself—to even put it exactly as he sensed it. But he sensed that he had lived his life in a way that he had not known. This meant there had been a large blindspot directly in front of his eyes. It meant that he did not understand, not really at all, how others had perceived him. And it meant that he did not know how to perceive himself.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“But here was the world, screeching its beauty at her day after day, and she felt grateful for it.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“Personality disorder? Given the extensive and widespread array of human emotions, why was anything a personality disorder?”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“No. I had enough of babies growing up.” “Never mind. Kids are just a needle in your heart.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect: This was true for Jim and Helen, and for Margaret and himself, as well.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“But it was almost over, after all, her life. It swelled behind her like a sardine fishing net, all sorts of useless seaweed and broken bits of shells and the tiny, shining fish—all those hundreds of students she had taught, the girls and boys in high school she had passed in the corridor when she was a high school girl herself (many—most—would be dead by now), the billion streaks of emotion she’d had as she’d looked at sunrises, sunsets, the different hands of waitresses who had placed before her cups of coffee— All of it gone, or about to go.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“You’re an easy woman to please,” he had said to her. And she had said, “You may be the first person to think that.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“And Olive thought about this: the way people can love those they barely know, and how abiding that love can be, and also how deep that love can be, even when—as in her own case—it was temporary. She thought of Betty and her stupid bumper sticker, and the child who had been so frightened that Halima Butterfly had told her about, and yet to tell any of this right now to Betty, who was genuinely suffering—as Olive had suffered—seemed cruel, and she kept silent.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“Here is the thing that Cindy, for the rest of her life, would never forget: Olive Kitteridge said, “My God, but I have always loved the light in February.” Olive shook her head slowly. “My God,” she repeated, with awe in her voice. “Just look at that February light.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“there’s not one goddamn person in this world who doesn’t have a bad memory or two to take with them through life.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“Stop it! Tell me how it’s really been! He sat back, pushed his glass forward. It’s just the way it was, that’s all. People either didn’t know how they felt about something or they chose never to say how they really felt about something.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“I think our job—maybe even our duty—is to—” Her voice became calm, adultlike. “To bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“I am the opposite of a snob.” Jack laughed a long time. “You think being a reverse snob is not being a snob? Olive, you’re a snob.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“When you get old,” Olive told Andrea after the girl had walked away, “you become invisible. It’s just the truth. And yet it’s freeing in a way.” Andrea”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“She did not have a family as other people did. Other people had their children come and stay and they talked and laughed and the grandchildren sat on the laps of their grandmothers, and they went places and did things, ate meals together, kissed when they parted.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“Her son had married his mother, as all men—in some form or other—eventually do.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“And that woman is not politics. She’s a person, and she has every right to be here.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“And so the day they had had together folded over on itself, was done with, gone.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“Betty was still weeping, but she was smiling more too, and she said, “Oh, it’s just a life, Olive.” Olive thought about this. She said, “Well, it’s your life. It matters.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“he was an old man who was talking to himself on a wharf in Portland, Maine, and he could not—Jack Kennison, with his two PhDs—he could not figure out how this had happened.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“She pulled the sheet of paper out and placed it carefully on top of her pile of memories; the words she had just written reverberated in her head. I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“You know, I just want to say, Mrs. Kitteridge told us, years ago in that math class—I will never forget it—one day she just stopped a math problem she was doing on the board and she turned around and she said to the class, ‘You all know who you are. If you just look at yourself and listen to yourself, you know exactly who you are. And don’t forget it.’ And I never did forget it. It kind of gave me courage over the years because she was right; I did know who I was.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again