I'm boggled by the idea of being an only child. I know nothing at all (I'm happy to say) about having had a cold and withholding mother, about being divorced. The more I've been writing novels, each novel I've written has become successively less grounded in anything approaching autobiography.

Anna Quindlen

More Quotes by Anna Quindlen
Categorized in : Children Writing Mother
More Quotes From Anna Quindlen

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

Anna Quindlen
being-yourself confidence letting-go

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

Anna Quindlen
reading book travel

Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.

Anna Quindlen
stars moon spring

New York is a city where it's particularly hard to be poor, not only because everything costs twice as much as it does elsewhere but because over-the-top affluence is part of its identity.

Anna Quindlen
cities identity new-york
The greatest public health threat for many American women is the... by Anna Quindlen

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with.

Anna Quindlen
usa health men

I got a fortune cookie that said, "To remember is to understand." I have never forgotten it. A good judge remembers what it was like to be a lawyer. A good editor remembers being a writer. A good parent remembers what it was like to be a child.

Anna Quindlen
editors life children

Acts of bravery don't always take place on battlefields. They can take place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and yes, your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.

Anna Quindlen
courage heart character

Reading is another thing that has made me more human by exposing me to worlds I might never have entered and people I might never meet.

Anna Quindlen
reading people world

being a parent is not transaction ... we do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: we are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us.

Anna Quindlen
parent strong giving

Life is not so much about beginnings and endings as it is about going on and on and on. It is about muddling through the middle.

Anna Quindlen
middle literature life-is
Speech is the voice of the heart. by Anna Quindlen

Speech is the voice of the heart.

Anna Quindlen
speech voice heart

There's no greater happiness than doing something every day that you love, that you feel you do in a satisfactory fashion, and which both supports and gives you time to support your family. I felt so lucky to have all that.

Anna Quindlen
support fashion giving

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that this is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

Anna Quindlen
journey dresses life

The voices of conformity speak so loudly. Don't listen to them. No one does the right thing out of fear. If you ever utter the words, 'We've always done it that way,' I urge you to wash out your mouth with soap.

Anna Quindlen
voice done doe
If an opportunity scares you, that's God's way of saying you shou... by Anna Quindlen

If an opportunity scares you, that's God's way of saying you should jump at it.

Anna Quindlen
starting-over opportunity life

I've been a feminist since I was a teenager, but originally it was because I wanted to make the world a better place for me.

Anna Quindlen
teenager feminist world

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Anna Quindlen
women smart morning
That's really what I want in a leader; I want somebody who's real... by Anna Quindlen

That's really what I want in a leader; I want somebody who's really, really smart.

Anna Quindlen
smart leader want

Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.

Anna Quindlen
regret children past

an the president bring out the voters who were so enthusiastic about him in 2008 and seem a little disenchanted now? Can he bring out young people? Can he bring out Latinos? Can he bring out those white suburban moms?

Anna Quindlen
mom white people