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being a parent is not transaction ... we do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: we are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us.

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
Give
Forward
Enough
Ultimate
Giving
Pay
Good
Parents
Stay
Transaction
Leave
Transactions
Parent
Endeavor
Strong
Loving

More quotes by Anna Quindlen

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We are writers. We danced with words, as children, in what became familiar patterns. The words became our friends and our companions, and without even saying it aloud, a thought danced with them: I can do this. This is who I am.
Anna Quindlen
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The problem with freedom is that you just can't go back. Once people see what it means to be free people, you can't go back. So they're going to keep nattering on about this and that, and maybe they'll make another stab at de-funding the fabulous Planned Parenthood or something of the sort. To my mind, it's just not going to work.
Anna Quindlen
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Your hair isn't quite right and maybe you're a size bigger than you should be and on and on and on. I think there comes a moment when you've matured to the point where you suddenly think, nonsense. I am fine just the way I am.
Anna Quindlen
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New 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
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There's something undeniable about the posture of a person trying not to acknowledge your existance
Anna Quindlen
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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
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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.
Anna Quindlen
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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.
Anna Quindlen
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It would take a helluva man to replace no man at all.
Anna Quindlen
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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.
Anna Quindlen
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Novels are usually built on conflict, sometimes very, very difficult conflict. It's why men write war novels - because there you go, there's the conflict writ large.
Anna Quindlen
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Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. You toodle along, thinking that all gay men wear leather after dark and should never, ever be permitted around a Little League field. And then one day your best friend from college, the one your kids adore, comes out to you.
Anna Quindlen
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I'm very optimistic. I think if you would describe me, my pretty consistent affect is that I'm a pretty happy person.
Anna Quindlen
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You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.
Anna Quindlen
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I think that we really fool ourselves about our ability to be safe and secure nowadays.
Anna Quindlen
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Recently a young mother asked for advice. What, she wanted to know, was she to do with a 7-year-old who was obstreperous, outspoken, and inconveniently willful? Keep her, I replied.... The suffragettes refused to be polite in demanding what they wanted or grateful for getting what they deserved. Works for me.
Anna Quindlen
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The reason child care is such a loaded issue is that when we talk about it, we are always tacitly talking about motherhood. And when we're talking about motherhood we're always tacitly assuming that child care must be a very dim second to full-time mother care.
Anna Quindlen
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It's an odd kind of feeling because it sort of reminds me of being five again. When you're a five-year-old, you don't pay any attention to what anyone thinks of you. You just sort of are in your skin.
Anna Quindlen
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When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well.
Anna Quindlen
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Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self that's why it survives
Anna Quindlen