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You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever.

Ellen Goodman

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Ellen Goodman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 11
Journalist
Newton
Massachusetts
Children
Spouse
Writing
Authors
Secretary
Abandon
Divorce
Remain
Fire
Forever

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What he labels sexual, she labels harassment.
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People have been writing premature obituaries on the women's movement since its beginning.
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I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.
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You can believe in women's rights without believing that every woman is right.
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The truth is that we can overhaul our surroundings, renovate our environment, talk a new game, join a new club, far more easily than we can change the way we respond emotionally. It is easier to change behavior than feelings about that behavior.
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Women have gained access to the institutions, but not enough power to overhaul them.
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Taboos are falling across our culture like dominoes. What was unspeakable yesterday dominates talk shows today.
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We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
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I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.
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Maybe at 20 you can write well, but I don't think you could do what I do. Some things have to happen to you first.
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It has begun to occur to me that life is a stage I'm going through.
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This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it's the family stories that are worth the storage.
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There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over - and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives.
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Today Washington is our Hollywood, the Senate our Warner Bros., the White House our Beverly Hills. People who never read a line of a movie magazine deal with the lives of leaders as if they were Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
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We each have a litany of holiday rituals and everyday habits that we hold on to, and we often greet radical innovation with the enthusiasm of a baby meeting a new sitter. We defend against it and - not always, but often enough - reject it. Slowly we adjust, but only if we have to.
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Statistically speaking, the Cheerful Early Riser is rejected more completely than a member of any other subculture, save those with boot odor.
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Kerry asks Americans to look at the evidence. Bush asks people to believe.
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We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?
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Parents remain our touchstones, fellow travelers, even after death. They are both missing and present.
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The great myth of our work-intense era is 'quality time.' We believe we can make up for the loss of days or hours, especially with each other, by concentrated minutes. But ultimately there is no way to do one-minute mothering. There is no way to pay attention in a hurry.
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