Anna Quindlen Quotes

Raging crime, class warfare, invasive immigrants, light morals, public misbehavior. Always we convince ourselves that the parade of unwelcome and despised is a new phenomenon, which is why the phrase "the good old days" has passed from cliché to self-parody.

Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves how to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live.

.. at a certain age we learned to see right through it, and that age is now.

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.

Sometimes I live so much in my mind that I forget what is right before my eyes.

All of reading is really only finding ways to name ourselves, and, perhaps, to name the others around us so that they will no longer seem like strangers.

Every reader, I suspect, has a book like this somewhere in his or her past, a book that seemed to hold within it, at that moment, all the mysteries of the universe.

But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.

Life is haphazard. We plan, and then we deal when the plans go awry. Control is an illusion; best intentions are the best we can do.

Set aside the old traditional notion of female as nurturer and male as leader; set aside, too, the new traditional notion of female as superwoman and male as oppressor. Begin with that most frightening of all things, a clean slate. And then look, every day, at the choices you are making, and when you ask yourself why you are making them, find this answer: Because they are what I want, or wish for. Because they reflect who and what I am.

This is the hard work of life in the world, to acknowledge within yourself the introvert, the clown, the artist, the homebody, the goofball, the thinker. Look inside. That way lies dancing to the melodies spun out by your own heart.

It's a complicated relationship, being a good grandparent, because it hinges on a series of other relationships... Because being a grandparent is determined by the relationship your child has with you, partly determined by the one a son or daughter has with his or her spouse, partly determined by the relationship you have with the person your child has chosen to have a child with.

This is how I learn most of what I know about my children and their friends: by sitting in the driver's seat and keeping quiet.

A finished person is a boring person.

My friendships have a certain symmetry at the moment: Alice is always asking me what she should do, and Nancy is always telling me what I should do.

When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well.