Quote

I was very driven, very focused, very ambitious. I mean, when I look back on myself in my 20s, part of me just cringes.

Anna Quindlen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anna Quindlen
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: July 8
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Anna Marie Quindlen
Look
Looks
Mean
Cringe
Ambitious
Driven
Focused
Part
Back

More quotes by Anna Quindlen

Image
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.
Anna Quindlen
Image
When I write a novel, I have what I think of as an icon that helps get me into the world of the book.
Anna Quindlen
Image
The life you have led doesn't need to be the only life you have.
Anna Quindlen
Image
As I said, I had this fabulous college education. At college I met the man to whom I've been married for 34 years and who is the father of those three kids. I seriously considered going to another college, and my life would have been completely different in every way.
Anna Quindlen
Image
The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with.
Anna Quindlen
Image
The victim mentality may be the last uncomplicated thing about life in America.
Anna Quindlen
Image
The truth about your own life is not always easy to accept, and sometimes hasn't even occurred to you.
Anna Quindlen
Image
Frankly, I'm mainly telling the story to myself. Thinking about audience is too daunting, and worst case, invites you to homogenize, to soften the hard edges of things.
Anna Quindlen
Image
I can't think of anything to write about except families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society.
Anna Quindlen
Image
It's what the Taliban does in Afghanistan, it's what gets done in the Middle East, and it's clearly something that certain mainly conservative groups in the United States would like to do. They miss the good old days, when men were men and women were nothing.
Anna Quindlen
Image
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.
Anna Quindlen
Image
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.
Anna Quindlen
Image
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.
Anna Quindlen
Image
All parents should be aware that when they mock or curse gay people, they may be mocking or cursing their own child.
Anna Quindlen
Image
It is so easy to waste our lives: Our days, our hours, our minutes ... it is so easy to exist instead of live.
Anna Quindlen
Image
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.
Anna Quindlen
Image
Get a life. A real life. Not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.
Anna Quindlen
Image
I learned that if I ever claim sexual harassment, I will be confronted with every bozo I once dated, every women I once impressedas snotty and superior, and together they will provide a convenient excuse to disbelieve me.
Anna Quindlen
Image
Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time.
Anna Quindlen
Image
knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us.
Anna Quindlen