Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout (born January 6, 1956) is an American novelist, short story writer, and teacher of creative writing. Several of her novels have been New York Times best sellers. Her short story cycle Olive Kitteridge (2008) won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Quotes

There’s a part of me in every character I write, whether it’s male or female, because everything has to go through me. Everything I’ve observed or heard or whatever—it all has to go through me. I’m the one who makes these people up, and so there’s a part of me in some form in all of these people, but I really have made them up. But they’re so real to me, you know? By the time I’m done with them on the page, they’re very, very real to me. They’re just as real to me as anybody that I’ve ever met.
- as quoted by Samantha Vorwald in: (September 1, 2017) "A Conversation with Elizabeth Strout". Booth. (a publication of the MFA program of Butler University)

Success did come to me later, but that was okay, I could feel myself getting better with each story or book. Age does matter to me — but that doesn’t mean it has to matter to all writers. It matters to me because as I age my work gets better, but more importantly, I live through more things and see more things, and therefore have more things to say.
- Elizabeth Strout interview: 'I could feel myself getting better with each story' — With Oh William! shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, we spoke to Elizabeth Strout about her intimate characterisation, the importance of listening and what’s next for Lucy Barton. The Booker Prizes (September 6, 2022). (with a link to an excerpt from Oh William!)

I’ve always been fascinated with this sense that every single person walking down the street has a whole story. It’s so interesting to think about the vast variety of things that can take place within one person’s life, and how nobody ever really knows it, because we only tell parts of our story to different people, and oh, I just want to know it so much! I always have, so I make it up.
- as quoted by Hephzibah Anderson in: (7 September 2024) "Books interview with Elizabeth Strout: ‘All ordinary people are extraordinary’— The Pulitzer prize winner on uniting Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton in her new novel, her unfathomable dreams, and how she went from ‘blabbermouth’ to writer". The Guardian.