It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. Anna Quindlen More Quotes by Anna Quindlen More Quotes From Anna Quindlen Maybe I had three children in the first place so I wouldn't ever have to play board games. In my religion, martyrs die. Anna Quindlen games play children I think the gift of my mother's death, if anything so terrible can be said to have an upside to it, is that I was always keenly aware that life was fleeting, and that you'd better live while you have the chance. As I say in the book, since I was 19 years old I felt like I was living for two, and when I out-lived my mother, when I got into my forties, it felt like a miracle to me. Anna Quindlen mother book thinking Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue, because it tells us there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying. Anna Quindlen xenophobia racism heart I'll tell you the truth - I went to a women's college, Barnard, the most selective college for women in America today. If there's one thing I came out of Barnard with, because it was a women's college and a great institution of higher education, it was fearlessness. Anna Quindlen college today america The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you'd never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools. Anna Quindlen talking kids school I wondered why I hadn't loved that day more, why I hadn't savored every bit of it...why I hadn't known how good it was to live so normally, so everyday. But you only know that, I suppose, after it's not normal and every day any longer. Anna Quindlen normal everyday knows I hadn't written a love story before and I hadn't written a novel with a happy ending before. Anna Quindlen happy-endings love-story stories As I said, I had this fabulous college education. At college I met the man to whom I've been married for 34 years and who is the father of those three kids. I seriously considered going to another college, and my life would have been completely different in every way. Anna Quindlen college father kids In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. Anna Quindlen reading book travel Whether talking about addiction, taxation [on cigarettes] or education [about smoking], there is always at the center of the conversation an essential conundrum: How come we're selling this deadly stuff anyway? Anna Quindlen addiction smoking talking But it's important, while we are supporting lessons in respecting others, to remember that many of our youngest kids need to learn to respect themselves. You learn your worth from the way you are treated. Anna Quindlen respect important kids You realize that these accidental decisions you make about changing jobs, about moving into an apartment where you make new friends and confidants, about going to one city over another, that sometimes they're completely arbitrary decisions that you haven't put as much thought into as perhaps you should have, and yet they change the course of your whole life. Anna Quindlen decisions-you-make jobs moving I was very driven, very focused, very ambitious. I mean, when I look back on myself in my 20s, part of me just cringes. Anna Quindlen ambitious mean looks I'm a Catholic of the New Testament, I'm not a Catholic of the hierarchy. Anna Quindlen new-testament hierarchy catholic Amid attempts to protect elephants from ivory poachers and dolphins from tuna nets, the rights of children go remarkably unremarked. Anna Quindlen elephants rights children I like to say that my mother had a very ordinary life. From the outside it didn't look like there was anything particularly special or wonderful about it, but when you watch somebody hold on to that life with both hands, it makes you think that life must be pretty damn good. Anna Quindlen mother hands thinking A finished person is a boring person. Anna Quindlen individuality reading book Now, a lot of people are challenged by the fact that a record number of people in their sixties have living parents, and a record number of people in their sixties have kids who may still depend upon them. Anna Quindlen numbers kids people Some of the most important lessons I've learned have been from stumbling, and I am deeply grateful that my parents allowed me to fight my own battles. Anna Quindlen grateful fighting parent The New Testament has had a really powerful effect on how I write and how I live my life. Anna Quindlen living-my-life powerful writing
