Quote

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.

Ellen Goodman

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Ellen Goodman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 11
Journalist
Newton
Massachusetts
Change
Changing
Great
Deal
Writing
Deals
Fiddling
Work
Stop
Subtract
Something
Working
Fiddle
Always
Words
Rewrite
Write
Deadline
Keep
Add

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What he labels sexual, she labels harassment.
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I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.
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The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.
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You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever.
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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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My generation is the first in my species to have put fitness next to godliness on the scale of things. Keeping in shape has become the imperative of our middle age. The heaviest burden of guilt we carry into our forties is flab. Our sense of failure is measured by the grade on a stress test.
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