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I never think about issues when I'm working on a novel. Issues are things that happen to people in sufficient numbers to elicit widespread attention in other words, they're just life happening. That's what I think about: life, and telling a story.

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
Never
Happen
Widespread
Think
Attention
Sufficient
Thinking
Working
Happenings
Life
Story
Happening
People
Words
Telling
Happens
Novel
Stories
Numbers
Things
Issues
Elicit

More quotes by Anna Quindlen

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Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.
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We've made hyper motherhood a measure of female success.
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Choose the kids. There will be plenty of time later to choose work.
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One of the interesting things I discovered, talking about your grandmother, is I did a search of my uses of the word elderly in my copy over the years, and you will not be surprised to hear that the older I got the less often I used the word elderly in print.
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I've been a feminist since I was a teenager, but originally it was because I wanted to make the world a better place for me.
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Young men kill someone for a handful of coins, then are remorseless, even casual: Hey, man, things happen. And their parents nab the culprit: it was the city, the cops, the system, the crowd, the music. Anyone but him. Anyone but me.
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The truth is that when you're writing a novel you're really living in it you're living in the house, and you're living in the town.
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In life, the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end.
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Familiarity breeds content.
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I do tend to be almost kind of Pollyanna-ish person.
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You teach your 16-year-old with your heart in your mouth to be a good driver and none of that makes any difference when some drunk comes around a corner and runs a stop sign.
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Parents have railed against shelters near schools, but no one has made any connection between the crazed consumerism of our kids and their elders' cold unconcern toward others. Maybe the homeless are not the only ones who need to spend time in these places to thaw out.
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You realize that especially when you're writing a book like this, looking back on your life, that there's just such a depth of understanding you acquire over time with the help of the people who love you that that's when you can really get down to what you really think and believe.
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I think when people keep saying to you, You're good at this, you just keep doing it.
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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.
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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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I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that this is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.
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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
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One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating of conformity.
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Look at the view and you'll never be disappointed.
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