We women have lived too much with closure: "If he notices me, if I marry him, if I get into college, if I get this work accepted, if I get this job" -- there always seems to loom the possibility of something being over, settled, sweeping clear the way for contentment. This is the delusion of a passive life. When the hope for closure is abandoned, when there is an end to fantasy, adventure for women will begin.
Carolyn Heilbrunas the years go on a sense of deep patience comes over one; one seems to know the virtue of ripeness, and the danger of rushing events.
Carolyn HeilbrunThe rare, delicate flavor of a life after retiring in one's sixties, whatever one has "retired" from, the pleasure I experienced beyond my job at Columbia, is a gift of life in the last decades. but it is not easily learned. . . . But sometimes, the only way to live is to get out, or at least seriously to contemplate getting out, doing the impossible,flinging the conventional tea.
Carolyn HeilbrunOne cannot make up stories; one can only retell in new ways the stories one has already heard.
Carolyn Heilbrun