Ellen Goodman

We owned what we learned back there; the experience and the growth are grafted into our lives.

The things we hate about ourselves aren’t more real than things we like about ourselves.

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?

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 value.

I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.

When we describe what the other person is really like, I suppose we often picture what we want. We look through the prism of our need.

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.

Values are not trendy items that are casually traded in.

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

In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.

Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can’t even describe, aren’t even aware of.

Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience – unless they are still up.