I was never any good at keeping secrets. Ariel Levy More Quotes by Ariel Levy More Quotes From Ariel Levy A wedding, a great wedding, is just a blast. A celebration of romance and community and love... What is unfun about that? Nothing. Ariel Levy great wedding community love I started keeping a diary in third grade and, in solidarity with Anne Frank, gave it a name and made it my confidante. To this day, I feel comforted and relieved of loneliness, no matter how foreign my surroundings, if I have a pad and a pen with which to record my experiences. Ariel Levy name feel day loneliness I was not big on playing house. I preferred make-believe that revolved around adventure, featuring pirates and knights. I was also domineering, impatient, relentlessly verbal, and, as an only child, often baffled by the mores of other kids. Ariel Levy big child house adventure I haven't really rebelled. I just think my parents were right. I never disagreed with anything that I was brought up with, in terms of their values or politics. Ariel Levy parents never think politics I'm a writer, not an activist. My job is to analyse things, to think them through and examine them. Ariel Levy through job things think There is a widespread assumption that simply because my generation of women has the good fortune to live in a world touched by the feminist movement, that means everything we do is magically imbued with its agenda, but it doesn't work that way. Ariel Levy good women work world Everyone's marriage is different. But everyone's marriage is a compromise. Ariel Levy everyone marriage compromise I think what's dangerous about marriage is the way it can make you feel like you've got it all wrapped up. Like you're done: you've found your spouse, you've married him or her, and you don't need to think too much more about it. Ariel Levy feel think you marriage It's a profound thing to watch another human being come out of your body. Ariel Levy human-being your your-body body For 10 minutes, I was somebody's mother, and that was both the most traumatic and also the most transcendent experience of my life. Ariel Levy my-life experience mother life No one could save me from the grief of losing my child or losing my first marriage. I had to do that on my own. Ariel Levy child me marriage losing I think all the time about the ways in which I'm the beneficiary of the women's movement's success. Ariel Levy think women success time I was not a popular little girl. I played Robinson Crusoe in a small wooden fort that my parents built for me in the back yard. In the fort, I was neither ostracized nor ill at ease - I was self-reliant, brave, ingeniously surviving, if lost. Ariel Levy parents me girl brave I decided early that I would be a writer when I grew up. That, I thought, was the profession that went with the kind of woman I wanted to become: one who is free to do whatever she chooses. Ariel Levy whatever woman free thought The 10 or 20 minutes I was somebody's mother were black magic; there is no adventure I would have traded them for. Ariel Levy magic black mother adventure This thinking that you can have every single thing you want in life is not the thinking of a feminist. It's the thinking of a toddler. Ariel Levy you single life thinking People didn't like me; I was loud and aggressive. People can take it from a 42-year-old, but when you're a little kid, and people are like, 'You're loud and awful,' you think, 'I guess I am awful,' so writing and figuring out how to put things into words was the way I felt better. Ariel Levy i-am me you people I think it would be difficult to argue that I'm a net-negative for womankind. I've tried pretty hard to bring in unusual female voices and perspectives. Not just young women and not just white women, either. I don't know that I'm the best target for improvement. I don't know that I'm the problem. Ariel Levy best women improvement white Once I started getting paid to be a writer and not having lots of other gross responsibilities, like making the puzzle or whatever, then my ambition changed, and I thought, 'Now I want to be a good writer.' And that became my ambition. Ariel Levy puzzle thought good ambition I'm not a polemicist; I had no business writing a polemic. Ariel Levy polemic had business writing
