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The Truth About Your Own Life Is Not Always Easy To Accept, And Sometimes Hasn't Even Occurred To You.
-Anna Quindlen
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The Truth About Your

Anna Quindlen
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The Truth About Your Own Life Is Not Always Easy To Accept, And Sometimes Hasn't Even Occurred To You.

Understanding the Quote: "the truth about your own life is not always easy to accept,..."

This quote by Anna Quindlen reflects deeply on the theme of sometimes. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Sometimes, Life Is, Easy, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Anna Quindlen interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen is celebrated for insightful thoughts on sometimes and life is. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Sometimes
Life Is
Easy
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Well, We Tell Our Kids Things Like 'don't Gossip' And Then An Hour Later They Hear Us On The Phone. Stuff Like That.
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Now The Baby Boomers, I.e., Us, Are Getting Older, And Were Suddenly Discovering That There Are Great Things About Getting Older. You Have Time For Your Friendships And You Appreciate Them In Ways That You Didn't Before.
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You Are The Only Person Alive Who Has Sole Custody Of Your Life ... Your Entire Life ... Not Just The Life Of Your Mind, But The Life Of Your Heart. Not Just Your Bank Account, But Your Soul.
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If There Is Anyone Who's Living The Work Of The New Testament, It's The Nuns Of The Catholic Church And Not The Catholic Hierarchy.
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I Think The Last Couple Of Years Of Life For Many, Many People Are The Same As They Were 50, 60, 70 Years Ago. They Could Be Really Tough Because Of Infirmity.
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Decorating Consists Mostly Of Building Enough Bookshelves.
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I Believe That In A Contest Between The Living And The Almost Living, The Latter Must, If Necessary, Give Way To The Will Of The Former.
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The 1992 Us Olympic Basketball Team Is The Best Sports Team Ever, The Equivalent Of Rounding Up The Greatest American Writers Of The Last Century Or So And Watching Them Collaborate: 'ok, Twain, You Do The Dialogue And Hand Off To Faulkner. He'll Do The Interior Monologue. Hemingway Will Edit - No, Don't Make That Face, You Know You Overwrite. And Be Nice To Cheever. He's Young, But He's Got A Good Ear. Wharton And Cather Can't Play - They're Girls.'
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[in The Aftermath Of Death] Small Talk Feels Too Small, Big Talk Too Enormous.
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God Bless The Physician Who Warms The Speculum Or Holds Your Hand And Looks Into Your Eyes. Perhaps One Subtext Of The Health Caredebate Is A Yen To Be Treated Like A Whole Person, Not Just An Eye, An Ear, A Nose Or A Throat. A Yen To Be Human Again, On The Part Of Patient And Doctor Alike.
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Wow, So Much Of The Way I've Transacted My Life... So Much Of The Results That I'm Happy About Are Because Of What Daddy Did.
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There Are Those Of Us Who Believe That Under Certain Conditions The Cruelest Thing You Can Do To People You Love Is To Force Them To Live. There Are Those Of Us Who Define Living Not By Whether The Heart Beats And The Lungs Lift But Whether The Spirit Is There, Whether The Music Box Plays.
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I Think The Very Best Thing About The Internet Is That I Can Read All The London Papers Every Day If I Want To.
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My Father Expected His First Child To Be A Boy, And When It Didn't Turn Out That Way He Didn't Let The Fact Get In The Way Of A Good Story.
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People Who Are Knowledgeable About Poetry Sometimes Discuss It In That Knowing, Rather Hateful Way In Which Oenophiles Talk About Wine: Robust, Delicate, Muscular. This Has Nothing To Do With How Most Of Us Experience It, The Heart Coming Around The Corner And Unexpectedly Running Into The Mind. Of All The Words That Have Stuck To The Ribs Of My Soul, Poetry Has Been The Most Filling.
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I Do Think That People Who Are Now In Their Sixties And Their Seventies Are Living A Different Kind Of Life Than Their Grandparents Led, Even In These Tough Times. A Lot Of Them Are More Active, A Lot Of Them Are Still Working, Which Was Not The Case When Our Grandparents Were In Their Sixties.
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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.
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Stereotypes Fall In The Face Of Humanity. We Human Beings Are Best Understood One At A Time.
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Don't Ever Confuse The Two, Your Life And Your Work. The Second Is Only Part Of The First.
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I Haven't Seen So Much Tippy-toeing Around Since The Last Time I Went To The Ballet. When Members Of The Arts Community Were Askedthis Week About One Of Their Biggest Benefactors, Philip Morris, And Its Requests That They Lobby The New York City Council On The Company's Behalf, The Pas De Deux Of Self- Justification Was So Painstakingly Choreographed That It Constituted A Performance All By Itself.
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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.
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... It Was The Idea Of Facing A Future Skimming The Surface Of Life, Winging My Way In And Out Of Other People's Crises, Confusions, And Passages, Engaging Them Enough To Get The Story, But Never Enough To Be Indelibly Touched By What I Had Seen Or Heard.
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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.
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On Social Welfare The Church Does So Much Good Around The World - Nuns Running Schools And Homeless Shelters, Priests Ministering To People Who Are In Crisis.
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If God Had Meant Harvard Professors To Appear In People Magazine, She Wouldn't Have Invented The New York Review Of Books.
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Real Friends Offer Both Hard Truths And Soft Landings And Realize That It's Sometimes More Important To Be Nice Than To Be Honest.
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All Parents Should Be Aware That When They Mock Or Curse Gay People, They May Be Mocking Or Cursing Their Own Child.
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The Thing That Is Really Hard, And Really Amazing, Is Giving Up On Being Perfect And Beginning The Work Of Becoming Yourself.
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I Think What Saved Me, As A Writer, Is That There Are Really Two Breaking Points In My Life. One Was When I Was 19 And My Mother Died, And One Was When I Was 31 And My First Child Was Born. And That Sort Of Gave Me A Kind Of Rebirth That I Think Has Been Invaluable To Me As A Novelist, In Terms Of Seeing The World Anew.
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I Am A Good Friend To My Husband. I Have Tried To Make My Marriage Vows Mean What They Say. I Show Up. I Listen. I Try To Laugh.
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What Usually Happens Is That When I'm Nearing The End Of One Novel A Vague Idea About What I Want To Do Next Begins To Present Itself To Me In Terms Of Theme. And I Would Say Over About The Next Six To Eight Months, Usually As I'm Out Power Walking In The Morning, Or When I'm Cooking At Night, Or When I'm Driving In The Car, The People Who Might Embody Those Themes Take On A Sharper And Sharper Focus. And There Comes This Sort Of Critical Mass Moment When They Actually Start To Do Things In My Head.
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Reading Has Always Been My Home, My Sustenance, My Great Invincible Companion. "book Love," Trollope Called It. "it Will Make Your Hours Pleasant To You As Long As You Live." Yet Of All The Many Things In Which We Recognize Some Universal Comfort...reading Seems To Be The One In Which The Comfort Is Most Undersung.
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The Closest Thing To An Outline Is, Because My Memory Is So Bad Now, If Something Occurs To Me That I Think Might Be Important Or Pivotal, A Lot Of Times I'll Scribble Notes Down Somewhere Until I Can Get Back To The Book. Of Course Half The Time I Look At Those Notes The Next Morning And Think, "what Was That About?"
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For Many Years, Despite What I Thought Were Really Punitive Decisions About Women In The Church, I Stayed And Stayed And Stayed. I Kept Saying To Myself, "the Catholic Church Is My Church, And By God, I'm Going To Stay Here, Despite What The Hierarchy Does."
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There Is Something So Settled And Stodgy About Turning A Great Romance Into Next Of Kin On An Emergency Room Form, And Something So Soothing And Special, Too.
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I Read And Walked For Miles At Night Along The Beach, Writing Bad Blank Verse And Searching Endlessly For Someone Wonderful Who Would Step Out Of The Darkness And Change My Life. It Never Crossed My Mind That That Person Could Be Me.
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The Problem... Is Emblematic Of What Hasn't Changed During The Equal Opportunity Revolution Of The Last 20 Years. Doors Opened; Opportunities Evolved. Law, Institutions, Corporations Moved Forward. But Many Minds Did Not.
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I Love Having A President Who I Think Is Smarter Than I Am.
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My Home Was In A Pleasant Place Outside Of Philadelphia. But I Really Lived, Truly Lived, Somewhere Else. I Lived Within The Covers Of Books.
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Home
Somewhere Else
If I Had To Guess What The New Etch-a-sketch Picture Is Going To Be Like, It's Going To Be Considerably Less To The Right. Romney Has Backed Himself Into A Couple Of Corners That I Don't Think Will Serve Him Well In The General Election, The Main One Being Very Harsh Stands On Immigration, Which I Think Are Not Only Short-sighted But To My Mind Immoral.
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Thinking
Mind
I Think Books In Which People Are Really Happy And Things Are Going Well Are Probably The Most Challenging Novels There Are To Write, And There Are Very Few Of Them.
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Writing
Thinking
On The Other Hand, I Think That Governor Romney Has To Worry That His Turnout Is Going To Be Low, That He Is Not Going To Bring Out The Evangelicals, That He Is Not Going To Bring Out The Tea Party Stalwarts. If He Does Not, Then It's Pretty Clear That He Will Lose The Election. So I Think Turnout In Key Groups Is Going To Be Really, Really Key On Election Day.
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Thinking
Keys
The Greatest Public Health Threat For Many American Women Is The Men They Live With.
Health
Men
Usa
Each Instance Of Sexual Harassment Has To Be Judged On Its Merits. Facts, Timing, Motives, Credibility: All Must Be Considered Before We Make Up Our Own Minds What To Believe.
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Mind
Merit
I Don't Understand How People Learn To Live In The World If They Haven't Had Siblings. Everything I Learned About Negotiation, Territoriality, Coexistence, Dislike, Inbred Differences And Love Despite Knowledge I Learned From My Four Younger Siblings.
Sibling
Differences
People
I Conveniently Forgot To Remember That People Only Have Two Hands, Or, As Another Parent Once Said Of Having A Third Child, It's Time For A Zone Defense Instead Of Man-to-man.
Children
Men
Hands
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.
Doctors
Rights
Medicine
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.
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Dedication
Self
Fifty Years Ago, Teachers Said Their Top Discipline Problems Were Talking, Chewing Gum, Making Noise, And Running In The Halls. The Current List, By Contrast, Sounds Like A Cross Between A Rap Sheet And The Seven Deadly Sins.
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Teacher
Rap
Reading Is Another Thing That Has Made Me More Human By Exposing Me To Worlds I Might Never Have Entered And People I Might Never Meet.
Reading
People
World
I'm Always Keeping An Eye On The Court. Also, When The Members Of Congress Came To His Office During The Budget Debacle Of A Year And A Half Back And Said, "we Want To De-fund Planned Parenthood," He Said, "not Going To Happen." Those Apparently Were More Or Less His Exact Words.
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Office
It Is So Easy To Exist Instead Of Live.
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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.
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It Would Take A Helluva Man To Replace No Man At All.
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The World Is Full Of Women Blindsided By The Unceasing Demands Of Motherhood, Still Flabbergasted By How A Job Can Be Terrific Andtorturous, Involving And Utterly Tedious, All At The Same Time. The World Is Full Of Women Made To Feel Strange Because What Everyone Assumes Comes Naturally Is So Difficult To Do--never Mind To Do Well.
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Motherhood
Childhood
There's A Certain Kind Of Conversation You Have From Time To Time At Parties In New York About A New Book. The Word "banal" Sometimes Rears Its By-now Banal Head; You Say "underedited," I Say "derivative." The Conversation Goes Around And Around Various Literary Criticisms, And By The Time It Moves On One Thing Is Clear: No One Read The Book; We Just Read The Reviews.
New York
Party
Moving
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.
Respect
Kids
Important
If We Really Feel Like We're Comfortable In Our Own Skins Now, We Have A Longer Period Of Time To Live Out That Kind Of Third Or Fourth Act Of Our Life.
Skins
Kind
Periods
I Really Feel Like I'm A Liberal Because I'm A Catholic, Because I Took The Words Of The New Testament To Heart.
Heart
Catholic
New Testament
I Think We Now Know The Limits Also Of Intelligence And Rhetoric.
Thinking
Limits
Rhetoric
I Got A Fortune Cookie That Said, "to Remember Is To Understand." I Have Never Forgotten It. A Good Judge Remembers What It Was Like To Be A Lawyer. A Good Editor Remembers Being A Writer. A Good Parent Remembers What It Was Like To Be A Child.
Life
Children
Editors
The Dark Aftermath Of The Frontier, Of The Vast Promise Of Possibility This Country First Offered, Is An Inflated Sense Of American Entitlement Today. We Want What We Want, And We Want It Now. Easy Credit. Fast Food. A Straight Shot Down The Interstate From Point A To Point B. The Endless Highway Is Crowded With The Kinds Of Cars Large Enough To Take A Mountain Pass In High Snow. Instead They Are Used To Take Children From Soccer Practice To Pizza Hut. In The Process They Burn Fuel Like There's No Tomorrow. Tomorrow's Coming.
Soccer
Country
Children
Here Is The Real Domino Theory - Gay Man To Gay Man, Bisexual Man To Straight Woman, Addict Mother To Newborn Baby, They All Fall Down And Someday It Will Come To You.
Mother
Baby
Real
Guilt Is What Separates Humans From Animals.
Animal
Guilt
Humans
Figuring Out Who You Are Is The Whole Point Of The Human Experience.
Daughter
Mother
Teenage
I Think Americans Suspect, Without Even Being Able To Articulate It, That We're At The End Of The American Century; That We're At The End Of The 100 Or 125 Or 150 Years When We Were The Undisputed Arbiter And Leader Of The World.
Thinking
Years
Leader
All Things Being Equal, I Would Choose A Woman Over A Man In Order To Even The Balance Of Power, To Insinuate A Different Perspective Into The Process, To Give Young Women Something To Shoot For And Someone To Look Up To. But All Things Are Rarely Equal.
Men
Order
Careers
Get A Life In Which You Notice The Smell Of Salt Water Pushing Itself On A Breeze Over The Dunes, A Life In Which You Stop And Watch How A Red-tailed Hawk Circles Over A Pond And A Stand Of Pines. Get A Life In Which You Pay Attention To The Baby As She Scowls With Concentration When She Tried To Pick Up A Cheerio With Her Thumb And First Finger.
Baby
Circles
Smell
I Go Online All The Time, I Just Don't Read About Myself. I Read A Fashion Website Called Go Fug Yourself. I Actually Correspond With The Fug Girls And That's Great.
Girl
Fashion
Online
It Is So Easy To Waste Our Lives: Our Days, Our Hours, Our Minutes ... It Is So Easy To Exist Instead Of Live.
Waste
Easy
Hours
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.
Kids
Numbers
People
We Don't Do Ambivalence Well In America. We Do Courage Of Our Convictions. We Do Might Makes Right. Ambivalence Is French. Certainty Is American.
America
Might
Conviction
We've Made Hyper Motherhood A Measure Of Female Success.
Motherhood
Female
Made
A Friend And I Flew South With Our Children. During The Week We Spent Together I Took Off My Shoes, Let Down My Hair, Took Apart My Psyche, Cleaned The Pieces, And Put Them Together Again In Much Improved Condition. I Feel Like A Car That's Just Had A Tune-up. Only Another Woman Could Have Acted As The Mechanic.
Children
Women
Hair
Having Children Can Smooth The Relationship, Too. Mother And Daughter Are Now Equals. That Is Hard To Imagine, Even Harder To Accept, For Among Other Things, It Means Realizing That Your Own Mother Felt This Way, Too--unsure Of Herself, Weak In The Knees, Terrified About What In The World To Do With You. It Means Accepting That She Was Tired, Inept, Sometimes Stupid; That She, Too, Sat In The Dark At 2:00 A.m. With A Child Shrieking Across The Hall And No Clue To The Child's Trouble.
Mother
Daughter
Children
My Sister Is A Public School Teacher. She Makes Far Far Less Money Than I Do, And Gets Almost No Public Attention For Her Work. Yet I Believe What She Does Is Infinitely More Important And More Difficult Than What I Do.
Teacher
Believe
School
Trying To Be Perfect May Be Inevitable For People Who Are Smart And Ambitious And Interested In The World And Its Good Opinion...what Is Really Hard, And Really Amazing, Is Giving Up On Being Perfect And Beginning The Work Of Becoming Yourself.
Giving Up
Smart
People
The Cairo Conferenceis About A Complicated Web Of Education And Employment, Consumption And Poverty, Development And Health Care. It Is Also About Whether Governments Will Follow Where Women Have So Clearly Led Them, Toward Safe, Simple And Reliable Choices In Family Planning. While Cairo Crackles With Conflict, In The Homes Of The World The Orthodoxies Have Been Duly Heard, And Roundly Ignored.
Home
Simple
Government
The New Testament Has Had A Really Powerful Effect On How I Write And How I Live My Life.
Powerful
Writing
Living My Life
I Would Be The Most Content If My Children Grew Up To Be The Kind Of People Who Think Decorating Consists Mostly Of Building Enough Bookshelves.
Children
Thinking
Independent Bookstores
Barack Obama Is The Kind Of Guy Who Likes To Do Things By Inches, He's The Kind Of Guy Who Likes To Build Consensus And Compromise.
Guy
Likes
Compromise
I Don't Really Read What People Write About Me. Someone Gives My Novel One Star; Are They A Troll? Are They Someone Who Hates My Politics And So Has Decided To Do That?
Stars
Hate
Writing
If An Opportunity Scares You, That's God's Way Of Saying You Should Jump At It.
Life
Opportunity
Starting Over
Sure Smokers Have Made Personal Choices. And They Pay For Those Choices Every Day, Whether Sitting Through An Airline Flight Dyingfor A Smoke, Or Dying For A Smoke In The Oncology Wing Of A Hospital. The Tobacco Companies Have Not Paid Nearly Enough For The Killing.
Wings
Addiction
Choices
I Grew Up In The Suburbs Of Philadelphia And One Of The Things I Like To Say Is That One Of The Biggest Impediments I Had To Becoming A Successful Writer Is I Had A Very Happy Childhood.
Successful
Philadelphia
Childhood
Uncontrollable Consumerism Has Become A Watchword Of Our Culture Despite Regular And Compelling Calls For Its End. The United States Has More Malls Than High Schools; Americans Spend More Time Shopping Than Reading. ... Some Of The Most Insightful Writing About The American Character Over The Nation's History Has Been About Neither Freedom Nor Democracy But About The Crazed Impulse To Acquire Things.
Reading
Writing
School
Downtime Is Where We Become Ourselves, Looking Into The Middle Distance, Kicking At The Curb, Lying On The Grass Or Sitting On The Stoop And Staring At The Tedious Blue Of The Summer Sky. I Don't Believe You Can Write Poetry, Or Compose Music, Or Become An Actor Without Downtime, And Plenty Of It, A Hiatus That Passes For Boredom But Is Really The Quiet Moving Of The Wheels Inside That Fuel Creativity.
Summer
Distance
Lying
I Think A Lot Of People, But Particularly A Lot Of Women, Get To This Stage When I'd Say They're Over 50. We Face A Lot Of Hard Judgment From The World, We Women. If You're A Full-time Mother, You Should Be Out Working. If You're Out Working, Your Kids Must Be Being Overlooked.
Mother
Kids
Thinking
I've Always Had A Certain Facility With Words.
Certain
Facility
I Think That After A While You Realize That Your Husband Can't Be All Things To You And Certainly You Don't Want The Kids To Be All Things To You, Because That Would Be A Terrible Weight For Them; And That Where You Really Find Solace A Lot Of The Time Is With Your Girlfriends.
Girlfriend
Husband
Kids
The More Humdrum Aspects Of Life Do Not Make For Gripping Reading. To Render Them Compelling, A Writer Must Describe The Universal In Eloquent And Evocative Prose. Alas, Frey's Writing Suggests That This Was Not An Option, And He Came Up With Something Else.
Reading
Writing
Gripping
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.
Numbers
Government
Faults
I'm Very Optimistic. I Think If You Would Describe Me, My Pretty Consistent Affect Is That I'm A Pretty Happy Person.
Optimistic
Thinking
Describe Me
A Finished Person Is A Boring Person.
Book
Reading
Individuality
People Always Blame The Girl; She Should Have Said No. A Monosyllable, But Conventional Wisdom Has Always Been That Boys Can't Manage It.
Girl
Wisdom
Boys
There's Something Undeniable About The Posture Of A Person Trying Not To Acknowledge Your Existance
Trying
Posture
Acknowledge
Those Of Us Who Read Because We Love It More Than Anything, Who Feel About Bookstores The Way Some People Feel About Jewelers.
People
Bookstores
Way
There Is Only Room In The Lifeboat Of Your Life For One, And You Always Choose Yourself, And Turn Your Parents Into Whatever It Takes To Keep You Afloat.
Parent
Literature
Rooms
I'm Not Making Light Of Prayers Here, But Of So-called School Prayer, Which Bears As Much Resemblance To Real Spiritual Experienceas That Freeze-dried Astronaut Food Bears To A Nice Standing Rib Roast. From What I Remember Of Praying In School, It Was Almost An Insult To God, A Rote Exercise In Moving Your Mouth While Daydreaming Or Checking Out The Cutest Boy In The Seventh Grade That Was A Far, Far Cry From Soul-searching.
Spiritual
Prayer
Nice
I Sometimes Think That Courage Is The Thing That You Need More Than Any Other Thing. It's Fear That Cripples Us. It's Fear That Accounts For Racism, It's Fear That Accounts For Sexism, For Xenophobia.
Xenophobia
Thinking
Racism
Sometimes I Remind Myself That I Almost Skipped The Party, That I Almost Went To A Different College, That The Whim Of A Minute Could Have Changed Everything And Everyone. Our Lives, So Settled, So Specific, Are Built On Happenstance.
Life
Party
College
At The Same Time That You've Got To Open Yourself Up To The Fact That Experience Is Going To Teach You Year After Year, Decade After Decade. I Remember I Very Badly Wanted To Write A Newspaper Column When I Was Only 21 Years Old, And I Went To My Editor And Told Him That, And He Said, "you're A Really Good Writer, But You Haven't Lived Long Enough To Be Qualified To Live Out Loud."
Writing
Years
Editors
There's No Greater Happiness Than Doing Something Every Day That You Love, That You Feel You Do In A Satisfactory Fashion, And Which Both Supports And Gives You Time To Support Your Family. I Felt So Lucky To Have All That.
Fashion
Giving
Support
Ignorant Free Speech Often Works Against The Speaker. That Is One Of Several Reasons Why It Must Be Given Rein Instead Of Suppressed.
Ignorant
Speech
Reason Why
While We Pay Lip Service To The Virtues Of Reading, The Truth Is That There Is Still In Our Culture Something That Suspects Those Who Read Too Much, Whatever Reading Too Much Means, Of Being Lazy, Aimless Dreamers, People Who Need To Grow Up And Come Outside To Where Real Life Is, Who Think Themselves Superior In Their Separateness.
Growing Up
Real
Reading
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.
Book
Past
Mystery
A Life Of Unremitting Caution, Without The Carefree - Or Even, Occasionally, The Careless - May Turn Out To Be Half A Life.
Inspirational
Half
May
The Church Does An Enormous Amount Of Good, And It Carries One Of The Most Valuable Messages Imaginable - That You Should Love Your Neighbor As Yourself, And That If You Have Two Coats You Should Give One To The Man Who Has None.
Love You
Men
Two
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?
Mother
Nursing
Clothes
In The Same Way The Brits Had To Get Used To The Idea That The Sun Had Set On The British Empire, I Think That There's The Subrosa Feeling That We Are At The End Of The American Century, And I Think That's Very, Very Hard For Americans To Take.
Thinking
Ideas
Feelings
The Misdeeds Of Ordinary Men Can Be Buried With Them, And Their Lives Described In Half-truths That Are Really Half-lies. But Not A Public Man. Particularly Not This One.
Lying
Men
Ordinary
We're Tortured, A Lot Of Us, Believe Me.
Believe
Believe In Me
While Liberals Had Embraced Obama As Someone Who Had Left-wing Progressive Ideas, The Truth Is That By Personality He's A Very Incremental Guy.
Wings
Ideas
Personality
Somewhere Between A Third And A Quarter Of All People Living In America Today Were Born Between 1946 And 1965 And If You Think You're Tired Of Hearing About Us, You Should Try Being One Of Us.
Tired
Thinking
America
I Think There Are Some Stories That Need To Be Told By A Specific Person As Opposed To In The Third Person.
Thinking
Needs
Stories
Writing For Urbanmoms Has Awarded Me A Multitude Of Amazing Opportunities. I Have Traveled To New Places; Alone And With My Family. I Have Discovered New Products, New Books, New Trends And New Restaurants, And Been Able To Share Them With My Readers. I've Met Other Wonderful Writers And Many Incredible Celebrities.
Book
Writing
Opportunity
I Do Think There's Some Aspect Of Being A Novelist That Is A Little Crazy Making.
Crazy
Thinking
Novelists
Amid Attempts To Protect Elephants From Ivory Poachers And Dolphins From Tuna Nets, The Rights Of Children Go Remarkably Unremarked.
Children
Rights
Elephants
The Unemployment Rate Among The Young In The United States Is Still Very Disconcerting, Although We All Know It's Nowhere Near As Bad As It Is In Some Of The European Countries, Where In Some Places It Approaches 50 Percent.
Country
United States
Unemployment
If You Raise An Intelligent Girl She Will Become A Feminist Because Of The Facts Of Her Own Life. Raising Feminist Boys Is More Difficult. Raising Egalitarian Boys. One Of The Reasons You Have To Raise Them That Way Is Because It's Better For Them.
Girl
Intelligent
Boys
Maybe I Had Three Children In The First Place So I Wouldn't Ever Have To Play Board Games. In My Religion, Martyrs Die.
Children
Games
Play
Kids And Violent Tv, Violent Tv And Violence, Violence And Kids. The Only People Missing From This Discussion Are The Parents. Where Are We? Gone. Abdicated.
Kids
People
Parent
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.
Kids
School
Talking
I Will Never Understand People Who Think That The Way To Show Their Righteous Opposition To Sexual Freedom Is To Write Letters Full Of Filthy Words.
Writing
Thinking
People
The Issue Is Privacy. Why Is The Decision By A Woman To Sleep With A Man She Has Just Met In A Bar A Private One, And The Decision To Sleep With The Same Man For $100 Subject To Criminal Penalties?
Sleep
Men
Issues
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.
Country
Teenager
Two
The Women Of My Mother's Generation Had, In The Main, Only One Decision To Make About Their Lives: Who They Would Marry. From That, So Much Else Followed: Where They Would Live, In What Sort Of Conditions, Whether They Would Be Happy Or Sad Or, So Often, A Bit Of Both. There Were Roles And There Were Rules.
Mother
Women
Decision
You Want To Have Fun With Your Kids, And No One Has Fun With Someone Who Runs Roughshod.
Running
Fun
Kids
How Is It That, A Full Two Centuries After Jane Austen Finished Her Manuscript, We Come To The World Of Pride And Prejudice And Find Ourselves Transcending Customs, Strictures, Time, Mores, To Arrive At A Place That Educates, Amuses, And Enthralls Us? It Is A Miracle. We Read In Bed Because Reading Is Halfway Between Life And Dreaming, Our Own Consciousness In Someone Else's Mind.
Dream
Reading
Pride
I Really Feel Like If You Can Get Past Your Fear, If You Can Say, "uh-uh, I'm Afraid To Do That And I'm Going To Do It Anyhow," That That's Really The Way To Have A Satisfying Life Moving Forward. I Think I Had That Kind Of Fearlessness Even As A Young Person. It Wasn't Tempered By Experience Or Wisdom, But It Took Me A Long Way.
Moving
Past
Thinking
You Write To Suit Some Sense In Yourself And Trust That That Will Resonate With A Certain Wider Readership.
Writing
Suits
Certain
But Never Fear, Gentlemen; Castration Was Really Not The Point Of Feminism, And We Women Are Too Busy Eviscerating One Another To Take You On.
Gentleman
Feminism
Busy
There's Some Muscle Group Around Your Shoulders That Seizes Up During The Perfection Dance And Doesn't Let Go Until You Are Asleep, Or Alone. Or Maybe It Never Really Lets Go At All.
Letting Go
Perfection
Groups
The Life Of A Good Dog Is Like The Life Of A Good Person, Only Shorter And More Compressed.
Dog
Good Person
Good Dog
Loss As Muse. Loss As Character. Loss As Life.
Character
Loss
Muse
Sometimes We Don't See Out Of Our Peripheral Vision What's Coming Right Around The Corner.
Vision
Sometimes
Corners
I Can't Begin To Predict How News Will Be Delivered To Readers In, Say, 100 Years. But I Do Know One Thing That Hasn't Changed: Whatever The Delivery System, Whether It's A Magazine, Book Or Blog, People Like Vivid Writing, Strong Stories And Credible People. So While The Venue Is Changing Rapidly, Human Nature Isn't, Which I Find Soothing.
Strong
Book
Writing
Reporters Are Not Paid To Operate In Retrospect. Because When News Begins To Solidify Into Current Events And Finally Harden Intohistory, It Is The Stories We Didn't Write, The Questions We Didn't Ask That Prove Far, Far More Damaging Than The Ones We Did.
Writing
Stories
Retrospect
I Always Have Music On Unless I'm Reading Aloud, Which I Always Do Before I Hand Anything In. It's The Only Way To Know If A Sentence Really Works, Without Clunks Or Cul-de-sac Clauses.
Reading
Hands
Way
I'm Going To Live Long Enough To Live In An America That Will Assume Universal Health Care Is A Basic Right. That Will Be Amusing And Terrific.
America
Long
Care
Books Are The Plane, And The Train, And The Road. They Are The Destination, And The Journey. They Are Home.
Travel
Book
Reading
Trending Author
Simon Baker
Andy Serkis
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