American - Author | January 6, 1956 -
I don't especially like to travel, not the way many people do. I know many people that love to go to far-off and different places, and I've never been like that. I seem to get homesick as quickly as a child.
Elizabeth Strout
LoveTravelChildPeopleGoKnow
I grew up on a dirt road in Maine, and pretty much everybody on that dirt road was related to me, and they were old. And so grumpy.
MeRoadOldDirtUpGrumpy
I'm so deeply interested in what it feels like to be other people that I get to operate under the illusion when I'm writing fiction that I'm not really revealing that much about myself. But, of course, I am, and I know that I am. And yet there's this sort of membrane that I get to work behind as I write my fiction, and I love it.
WorkLoveMyselfI AmPeopleKnow
The fact of the matter is I always have a really high sense of responsibility to the reader, whether it's a few readers that I get or a lot of readers, which I was lucky enough to get with 'Olive.' I feel responsible to them, to deliver something as truthful and straight as I can.
ResponsibilityFeelEnoughI Can
In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.
HistoryWritingThinkKindWayOwn
I do write by hand. I just think - I don't know, it's a physical thing for me. It's a bodily thing. It literally has to earn its way through my hand.
MeThinkKnowHandWayWrite
I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.
TimeKeep GoingWritingWorldVoice
My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it.
WomenJobCleaningFirstDifferent
Without a doubt my mother was an inspiration for my writing. This is true in many ways, but mostly because she is a wonderful storyteller, without even knowing it.
MotherWritingDoubtTrueKnowing
I love theater. I love sitting in an audience and having the actors right there, playing out what it means to be a human being.
LoveSittingHumanRightOutBeing
For years I did most of my reading on the F train between Brooklyn and Manhattan. I had long commutes, and I read tons of books on that train; I loved it.
ReadingLovedLongBrooklynTrain
I do reread, kind of obsessively, partly for the surprise of how the same book reads at a different point in life, and partly to have the sense of returning to an old friend.
LifeFriendBookSurpriseKindOld
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