I would even go to Washington, which is saying something for me, just to glimpse Jane Q. Public, being sworn in as the first female president of the United States, while her husband holds the Bible and wears a silly pill box hat and matching coat. Anna Quindlen More Quotes by Anna Quindlen More Quotes From Anna Quindlen Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. You toodle along, thinking that all gay men wear leather after dark and should never, ever be permitted around a Little League field. And then one day your best friend from college, the one your kids adore, comes out to you. Anna Quindlen gay kids fall I do tend to be almost kind of Pollyanna-ish person. Anna Quindlen pollyanna kind persons I learned that if I ever claim sexual harassment, I will be confronted with every bozo I once dated, every women I once impressedas snotty and superior, and together they will provide a convenient excuse to disbelieve me. Anna Quindlen prejudice excuse together The absence on the panel of anyone who could become pregnant accidentally or discover her salary was five thousand dollars a yearless than that of her male counterpart meant there was a hole in the consciousness of the committee that empathy, however welcome, could not entirely fill. Anna Quindlen empathy dollars prejudice Socialized medicine, some still cry, but it's long been socialized, with those covered paying for those who are underinsured. American medicine is simply socialized badly, penny wise and pound foolish. Anna Quindlen medicine wise long We're tortured, a lot of us, believe me. Anna Quindlen believe-in-me believe There may perhaps be a new generation of doctors horrified by lacerations, infections, women who have douched with kitchen cleanser. What an irony it would be if fanatics continued to kill and yet it was the apathy and silence of the medical profession that most wounded the ability to provide what is, after all, a medical procedure. Anna Quindlen doctors medicine rights The reason child care is such a loaded issue is that when we talk about it, we are always tacitly talking about motherhood. And when we're talking about motherhood we're always tacitly assuming that child care must be a very dim second to full-time mother care. Anna Quindlen mother talking children Athletes are American princes and the locker room is their castle. Some of them behave in princely fashion, become legitimate heroes to us all. And some are jerks. Anna Quindlen fashion hero sports I think at every moment in the last probably 100 years, when the institutional church had the opportunity to do the right thing, they did the wrong thing. They're a dying institution in many parts of the world because they refuse to ordain women or married people. And now they're a dying institution because some of their members did enormous harm to young people and instead of responding aggressively with humility, and with love, and with the confession of wrongdoing, they tried to spin it as though they were a political party, and that's just deplorable. Anna Quindlen party humility opportunity And yet we constantly reclaim some part of that primal spontaneity through the youngest among us, not only through their sorrow and anger but simply through everyday discoveries, life unwrapped. To see a child touch the piano keys for the first time, to watch a small body slice through the surface of the water in a clean dive, is to experience the shock, not of the new, but of the familiar revisited as though it were strange and wonderful. Anna Quindlen piano discovery children Jail sentences have many functions, but one is surely to send a message about what our society abhors and what it values. This week, the equation was twofold: female infidelity twice as bad as male abuse, the life of a woman half as valuable as that of a man. The killing of the woman taken in adultery has a long history and survives today in many cultures. One of those is our own. Anna Quindlen taken law men Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. We human beings are best understood one at a time. Anna Quindlen humanity faces fall An election marks the end of the affair; it puts paid to the seduction of the many by the few. Pretty words, fulsome promises. We wind up married, but to whom, to what? We cannot always predict with certainty the future leader from the winning candidate. Some men grow in the job; others are diminished by its demands and its grandeur. Anna Quindlen winning jobs men The truth is that when you're writing a novel you're really living in it; you're living in the house, and you're living in the town. Anna Quindlen towns house writing The difference between government and leadership is that leadership has a soul. Anna Quindlen differences government leadership We are awash in the revealed world. Anna Quindlen information world the most sacred business of judges is not to ratify the will of the majority but to protect the minority from its tyranny. Anna Quindlen majority judging justice Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. Anna Quindlen pieces life-is long Testosterone does not have to be toxic. Anna Quindlen toxic doe men