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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.

Anna Quindlen

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Anna Quindlen
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: July 8
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Anna Marie Quindlen
Everyone
Minute
Lives
Built
Everything
College
Skipped
Sometimes
Minutes
Happenstance
Different
Changed
Whim
Life
Went
Settled
Almost
Remind
Party
Specific

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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.
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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.
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The voices of conformity speak so loudly. Don't listen to them. No one does the right thing out of fear. If you ever utter the words, 'We've always done it that way,' I urge you to wash out your mouth with soap.
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Choose the kids. There will be plenty of time later to choose work.
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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.
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It would take a helluva man to replace no man at all.
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Socialized medicine, some still cry, but it's long been socialized, with those covered paying for those who are underinsured. American medicine is simply socialized badly, penny wise and pound foolish.
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People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.
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I'm a Catholic of the New Testament, I'm not a Catholic of the hierarchy.
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If I get the forty additional years statisticians say are likely coming to me, I could fit in at least one, maybe two new lifetimes. Sad that only one of those lifetimes can include being the mother of young children.
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Look at the view and you'll never be disappointed.
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I had that feeling you have when you're watching a sad movie, sobbing at the heartbreak you are feeling at the same time that you know the heartbreak isn't exactly real, that it will be gone by the time you get home and make a cup of tea. I found a lot of life like that when I was younger, as though I was practicing for what came later.
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A life of unremitting caution, without the carefree - or even, occasionally, the careless - may turn out to be half a life.
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Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.
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Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.
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Maybe crazy is just the word we use for feelings that will not be contained.
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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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She say guilt is a useless emotion. Oh, please, says Nancy. Guilt is what separates humans from animals.
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I only really understand myself, what I'm really thinking and feelings, when I've talked it over with my circle of female friends. When days go by without that connection, I feel like a radio playing in an empty room.
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