I think Americans suspect, without even being able to articulate it, that we're at the end of the American century; that we're at the end of the 100 or 125 or 150 years when we were the undisputed arbiter and leader of the world.
Anna QuindlenNow the baby boomers, i.e., us, are getting older, and were suddenly discovering that there are great things about getting older. You have time for your friendships and you appreciate them in ways that you didn't before.
Anna QuindlenFebruary is a suitable month for dying. Everything around is dead, the trees black and frozen so that the appearance of green shoots two months hence seems preposterous, the ground hard and cold, the snow dirty, the winter hateful, hanging on too long.
Anna QuindlenI feel about exercise the same way that I feel about a few other things: that there is nothing wrong with it if it is done in private by consenting adults.
Anna QuindlenIt often seems, looking back, that the unexpected comes to define us, the paths we didn't see coming and may have wandered down by mistake. The older we get the more willing we are to follow those, to surprise ourselves.
Anna QuindlenIt is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the pale new growth on an evergreen, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the colour of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking.
Anna Quindlen