There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger. Anna Quindlen More Quotes by Anna Quindlen More Quotes From Anna Quindlen More than a decade after our fellow citizens began bedding down on the sidewalks, their problems continue to seem so intractable that we have begun to do psychologically what government has been incapable of doing programmatically. We bring the numbers down--not by solving the problem, but by deciding it's their own damn fault. Anna Quindlen faults government numbers With reference to the younger generation..."If the experience of their exhausted, insomniac, dispirited elders makes them decide they'd prefer not to go straight from the classroom to the cubicle to the coffin, it doesn't mean they're lazy. It means they're sane." Anna Quindlen cubicles lazy mean It is difficult for me to imagine the same dedication to women's rights on the part of the kind of man who lives in partnership with someone he likes and respects, and the kind of man who considers breast-augmentation surgery self-improvement. Anna Quindlen dedication self men I'm writing this memoir from the perspective of somebody who's prosperous and has means. Having said that, one of the things that I think I discovered about those additional years is that I don't think they really are added to the end of life. Anna Quindlen writing mean thinking Jane Austen may not be the best writer, but she certainly writes about the best people. And by that I mean people just like me. Anna Quindlen writing mean people When I quit The New York Times to be a fulltime mother, the voices of the world said I was nuts....But if success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your soul, it is not success at all. Anna Quindlen new-york mother inspirational There are obvious places in which government can narrow the chasm between haves and have-nots. One is the public schools, which have been seen as the great leveler, the authentic melting pot. That, today, is nonsense. In his scathing study of the nation's public school system entitled "Savage Inequalities," Jonathan Kozol made manifest the truth: that we have a system that discriminates against the poor in everything from class size to curriculum. Anna Quindlen education class school What had I expected of the first child? Everything. Rocket scientist. Neurosurgeon. Designated hitter. We talked wisely at cocktail parties about the sad mistake our mothers had made in pinning all their hopes and dreams on us. We were full of it. Anna Quindlen mother dream children I sort of feel like it comes around again. That when you get to a certain age, when you've lived enough and you've got your friends to support you and your family to support you, you wake up one morning and think, yeah, I'm okay. Anna Quindlen support-you morning thinking When hot dogs like Mr. D'Amato or the Republican apologist Roger Ailes say that Whitewater is worse than Watergate, it's because they're suffering from a disease. It's called bull-imia, and it's the regurgitation of patent hyperbole. Anna Quindlen patents suffering dog Ethnic stereotypes are misshapen pearls, sometimes with a sandy grain of truth at their center. ... but they ignore complexity, change, and individuality. Anna Quindlen individuality pearls sometimes That's what makes life so hard for women, that instead of thinking that this is the way things are, we always think it's the way we are. Anna Quindlen women way thinking what we call things matters. ... The words we use, and how we perceive those words, reflect how we value, or devalue, people, places, and things. Anna Quindlen use matter people I do get a sense that there's a huge disconnect between the political powers and what's really happening, so right-wing conservatives can talk about contraception all they want, but the women of America are using birth control. It's as simple as that. Anna Quindlen simple wings america I can't think of anything to write about except families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society. Anna Quindlen family writing thinking Predictions that unit cohesion could not survive honesty about sexual orientation were simply wrong. What does threaten morale arethe prolonged investigations, the questioning of friends and co-workers, the searches of barracks for magazines and letters, the witch hunts. Anna Quindlen magazines honesty doe America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security. Anna Quindlen teenager two country So I do think sometimes the political mechanism is completely disconnected from the people. However, what I will say is that history tells us that whenever things start to move too fast, whenever progress makes people feel a little breathless, one of the go-to spots that government, that the ruling powers that society goes to is to try to repress women. Anna Quindlen government moving thinking When an actress takes off her clothes onscreen but a nursing mother is told to leave, what message do we send about the roles of women? Anna Quindlen nursing clothes mother When you look at the women that have made a real difference in the world throughout history, what they’ve done has almost always been defined by fearlessness. That’s something I came to at a certain point; I wish I’d come to it younger. Stop looking over your shoulder — there’s nobody who matters back there. Anna Quindlen differences over-you real
