Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time. Anna Quindlen More Quotes by Anna Quindlen More Quotes From Anna Quindlen I think there are some stories that need to be told by a specific person as opposed to in the third person. Anna Quindlen stories needs thinking When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well. Anna Quindlen wells habit want People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it. Anna Quindlen girl wisdom boys I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me. Anna Quindlen ocean life beach I know a lot and have written a lot and have thought a lot about motherhood. Anna Quindlen written motherhood knows Figuring out who you are is the whole point of the human experience. Anna Quindlen teenage daughter mother Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. "Book love," Trollope called it. "It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live." Yet of all the many things in which we recognize some universal comfort...reading seems to be the one in which the comfort is most undersung. Anna Quindlen reading home book [In the aftermath of death] Small talk feels too small, big talk too enormous. Anna Quindlen enormous aftermath bigs The beginning and the end are never really the journey of discovery for me. It is the middle that remains a puzzle until well into the writing. That's how life is most of the time, isn't it? You know where you are and where you hope to wind up. It's the getting there that's challenging. Anna Quindlen journey writing discovery When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Anna Quindlen motivational inspirational funny This is how I learn most of what I know about my children and their friends: by sitting in the driver's seat and keeping quiet. Anna Quindlen keeping-quiet sitting children the joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others. Anna Quindlen reader joy world Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them. Anna Quindlen trust stupid book My mother was an incredibly loving mother. Anna Quindlen loving-mother mother How is it that, a full two centuries after Jane Austen finished her manuscript, we come to the world of Pride and Prejudice and find ourselves transcending customs, strictures, time, mores, to arrive at a place that educates, amuses, and enthralls us? It is a miracle. We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind. Anna Quindlen pride reading dream Today is the only guarantee you get. Anna Quindlen guarantees today Real friends offer both hard truths and soft landings and realize that it's sometimes more important to be nice than to be honest. Anna Quindlen nice real friendship I was a kid who sometimes got in trouble because I couldn't keep my mouth shut, which turned out to be an advantage when I became an opinion columnist. Anna Quindlen opinion mouths kids In life, the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. Anna Quindlen classroom exam ends I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are to write, and there are very few of them. Anna Quindlen writing book thinking