22
" Inside the music like this, she understood many things. She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at this age, to tell her he had pitied her for years. She understood that as he drove his car back down the coast toward Boston, toward his wife with whom he had raised three children, that something in him would be satisfied to have witnessed her the way he had tonight, and she understood that this form of comfort was true for many people, as it made Malcolm feel better to call Walter Dalton a pathetic fairy, but it was thin milk, this form of nourishment; it could not change that you had wanted to be a concert pianist and ended up a real estate lawyer, that you had married a woman and stayed married to her for thirty years, when she did not ever find you lovely in bed. "
― Elizabeth Strout , Olive Kitteridge (Olive Kitteridge, #1)
27
" La memoria. Passava a palmi aperti davanti alle sue scenate e poi si chiudeva, portando via l'inizio, la fine, la
cornice entro cui esistevano quelle scenate. Ma in quelle brevissime immagini di se stessa che gridava contro Steve, contro Zach, Susan riconobbe la propria madre, e il suo viso avvampò di vergogna. Non aveva mai capito quello che comprendeva ora: che gli attacchi di furia della madre le avevano reso la furia accettabile, che le parole che la madre le aveva rivolto erano diventate quelle
che lei stessa rivolgeva agli altri. Sua madre non le aveva mai detto: «Scusami, Susan, non avrei dovuto parlarti
cosi». E perciò anni dopo, quando anche Susan aveva parlato così, non aveva chiesto scusa.
Ed era troppo tardi. Nessuno vuole mai credere che sia troppo tardi, ma lo sta sempre diventando. E poi lo è. "
― Elizabeth Strout , The Burgess Boys
36
" Il silenzio, là dove avevano riecheggiato per tanti anni il suono della voce di Pam, le sue chiacchiere, le risate, le opinioni taglienti, gli improvvisi scoppi di pianto. L’assenza di tutto questo, il silenzio di una doccia che non scorreva, di cassetti che non si aprivano, perfino il silenzio di se stesso, che quando rientrava in casa non parlava, non raccontava a nessuno la sua giornata. Quel silenzio quasi lo uccideva. "
― Elizabeth Strout , The Burgess Boys
39
" 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