01c. 1952 ADA loose end - that's what we woman call it, when we are overwhelmed by the care of small children, the weight of small tasks, a life in which we fall into bed at the end of the day exhausted from being all things to all people.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
02c. 1952 ADthere is still a kind of unique loneliness to child rearing for women. We so often do it in isolation. Add to the fact that in our competitive, perfectionist culture, in which the price woman are required to pay for freedom still seems to be martyrdom, almost everyone lies about motherhood. Part of that lying is loyalty - I can't let on that my kid is the only one on the playground who can't read or play the piano - and part of it is self-protection, since we've made hyper-motherhood a measure of female success. The preferred answer to the question "How are you?" is always "Fine," and the answer to the question "How are the kids?" is supposed to be "Great!" That's true even if the accurate answers would be "terrible" and "a mess." I think it produces its own kind of desperation, especially for women, who yearn to be emotionally open.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
03c. 1952 ADI've discovered that sometimes writing badly can eventually lead to something better. Not writing at all leads to nothing.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
04c. 1952 ADI have a cat, the pet that ranks just above a throw pillow in terms of required responsibility.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
05c. 1952 AD.. at a certain age we learned to see right through it, and that age is now.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
06c. 1952 ADNew York City has finally hired women to pick up the garbage, which makes sense to me, since, as I've discovered, a good bit of being a woman consists of picking up garbage.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
07c. 1952 ADIn England I am always madam; I arrived too late to ever be a miss. In New York I have only been madamed once, by the doorman at the Carlyle Hotel.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
08c. 1952 ADYou can tell a really wonderful quote by the fact that it's attributed to a whole raft of wits.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
09c. 1952 ADMy child looked at me and I looked back at him in the delivery room and I realized that out of a sea of infinite possibilities it had come down to this: a specific person born on the hottest day of the year conceived on a Christmas Eve made by his father and me miraculously from scratch.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
10c. 1952 ADThe clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that two people are incompatible that is one is male and the other female.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
12c. 1952 ADBut 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 / quote ↗
13c. 1952 ADThe clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that the two people are incompatible; that is, that one is male and the other female.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
14c. 1952 ADI'm sure not afraid of success and I've learned not to be afraid of failure. The only thing I'm afraid of now is of being someone I don't like much.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
15c. 1952 ADChildren should have enough freedom to be themselves - once they've learned the rules.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
16c. 1952 ADI realized that, while I would never be my mother nor have her life, the lesson she had left me was that it was possible to love and care for a man and still have at your core a strength so great that you never even needed to put it on display.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
17c. 1952 ADEven as we enumerate their shortcomings, the rigor of raising children ourselves makes clear to us our mothers' incredible strength. We fear both. If they are not strong, who will protect us? If they are not imperfect, how can we equal them?Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
18c. 1952 ADAfter all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
19c. 1952 ADAmerica 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 / quote ↗
20c. 1952 ADWomen who marry early are often overly enamored of the kind of man who looks great in wedding pictures and passes the maid of honor his telephone number.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
21c. 1952 ADThe thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
22c. 1952 ADThe greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
23c. 1952 ADIdeas 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 / quote ↗
24c. 1952 ADThere is little premium in poetry in a world that thinks of Pound and Whitman as a weight and a sampler, not an Ezra, a Walt, a thing of beauty, a joy forever.Anna Quindlen / quote ↗
