Welcome to a compilation of insightful and thought-provoking quotes by Anna Quindlen, a renowned American author, journalist, and social critic. With a remarkable ability to articulate the complexities of human emotion, societal issues, and the essence of life itself, Quindlen’s words resonate deeply with readers across the globe. Throughout her illustrious career, she has penned numerous bestsellers, won prestigious awards, and left an indelible mark on literature and journalism.
Anna Quindlen’s writing is characterized by its profound empathy, keen observation, and unwavering honesty. Whether delving into the intricacies of family dynamics, the challenges of womanhood, or the broader societal landscape, her words have a way of striking a chord with readers, compelling them to reflect on their own experiences and perspectives. Through her insightful commentary and poignant storytelling, Quindlen has become a voice of wisdom and insight in a world often fraught with complexity and ambiguity.
When children are small, parents should run their lives and not the other way around. Anna Quindlen
I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. Anna Quindlen
And I don’t have to listen to a sermon to know what to think or feel about them. It’s almost as if I absorbed completely what mattered most to me, and the rest could go. Anna Quindlen
If there is anyone who’s living the work of the New Testament, it’s the nuns of the Catholic church and not the Catholic hierarchy. Anna Quindlen
Children should have enough freedom to be themselves – once they’ve learned the rules. Anna Quindlen
The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with. Anna Quindlen
The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you’d never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools. Anna Quindlen
If God had meant Harvard professors to appear in People magazine, She wouldn’t have invented The New York Review of Books. Anna Quindlen
Here is the real domino theory – gay man to gay man, bisexual man to straight woman, addict mother to newborn baby, they all fall down and someday it will come to you. Anna Quindlen
Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed. Anna Quindlen
There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger. Anna Quindlen
America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security. Anna Quindlen
Life is not so much about beginnings and endings as it is about going on and on and on. It is about muddling through the middle. Anna Quindlen
I am an affirmative action hire. Anna Quindlen
Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don’t discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it’s stupid. Banning books shows you don’t trust your kids to think and you don’t trust yourself to be able to talk to them. Anna Quindlen
If I get the forty additional years statisticians say are likely coming to me, I could fit in at least one, maybe two new lifetimes. Sad that only one of those lifetimes can include being the mother of young children. Anna Quindlen
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
The clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that the two people are incompatible; that is, that one is male and the other female. Anna Quindlen
All parents should be aware that when they mock or curse gay people, they may be mocking or cursing their own child. Anna Quindlen
Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around. Anna Quindlen
The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. Anna Quindlen
If you want something, it will elude you. If you do not want something, you will get ten of it in the mail. Anna Quindlen
There is little premium in poetry in a world that thinks of Pound and Whitman as a weight and a sampler, not an Ezra, a Walt, a thing of beauty, a joy forever. Anna Quindlen
After all those years as a woman hearing ‘not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,’ almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, ‘I’m enough.’ Anna Quindlen
I would even go to Washington, which is saying something for me, just to glimpse Jane Q. Public, being sworn in as the first female president of the United States, while her husband holds the Bible and wears a silly pill box hat and matching coat. Anna Quindlen
All of the qualities that you need to be a good opinion columnist tend to be qualities that aren’t valued in women. Anna Quindlen
In the family sandwich, the older people and the younger ones can recognize one another as the bread. Those in the middle are, for a time, the meat. Anna Quindlen
I don’t have to listen to the Gospel on Sunday to know the stories of the New Testament. They inform so much of what I write that they’re practically like a news scrim that goes through my brain 24/7. Anna Quindlen
Even as we enumerate their shortcomings, the rigor of raising children ourselves makes clear to us our mothers’ incredible strength. We fear both. If they are not strong, who will protect us? If they are not imperfect, how can we equal them? Anna Quindlen
I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me. Anna Quindlen
I realized that, while I would never be my mother nor have her life, the lesson she had left me was that it was possible to love and care for a man and still have at your core a strength so great that you never even needed to put it on display. Anna Quindlen
The problem… is emblematic of what hasn’t changed during the equal opportunity revolution of the last 20 years. Doors opened; opportunities evolved. Law, institutions, corporations moved forward. But many minds did not. Anna Quindlen
People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can’t manage it. Anna Quindlen
Raising a child is a little like Picasso’s work; in the beginning he did very conventional representational things. Cubism came after he had the rules down pat. Anna Quindlen
I’m sure not afraid of success and I’ve learned not to be afraid of failure. The only thing I’m afraid of now is of being someone I don’t like much. Anna Quindlen
I once wanted to be a personage. Now I am comfortable being a person. Anna Quindlen
I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. Anna Quindlen
The victim mentality may be the last uncomplicated thing about life in America. Anna Quindlen
There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat. Anna Quindlen
Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts. Anna Quindlen
I will never understand people who think that the way to show their righteous opposition to sexual freedom is to write letters full of filthy words. Anna Quindlen
But it’s important, while we are supporting lessons in respecting others, to remember that many of our youngest kids need to learn to respect themselves. You learn your worth from the way you are treated. Anna Quindlen
Women who marry early are often overly enamored of the kind of man who looks great in wedding pictures and passes the maid of honor his telephone number. Anna Quindlen
The issue is privacy. Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties? Anna Quindlen
Somewhere between a third and a quarter of all people living in America today were born between 1946 and 1965 and if you think you’re tired of hearing about us, you should try being one of us. Anna Quindlen
There is something so settled and stodgy about turning a great romance into next of kin on an emergency room form, and something so soothing and special, too. Anna Quindlen
You want to have fun with your kids, and no one has fun with someone who runs roughshod. Anna Quindlen
A finished person is a boring person. Anna Quindlen
