Gail Sheehy

“Be willing to shed parts of your previous life. For example, in our 20s, we wear a mask; we pretend we know more than we do. We must be willing, as we get older, to shed cocktail party phoni...”

“No sooner do we think we have assembled a comfortable life than we find a piece of ourselves that has no place to fit in.”

“Spontaneity, the hallmark of childhood, is well worth cultivating to counteract the rigidity that may otherwise set in as we grow older.”

“I do think taking the 20s to take the most chances you can is important, because you're not going to hurt anyone else during that time. And if you do have a partner, you need a couple years...”

“I was devastated when I got the review for my first book. The book came out a couple years before the women's movement broke through, and people were putting it down, asking, 'Why does the w...”

“Stress overload makes us stupid. Solid research proves it. When we get overstressed, it creates a nasty chemical soup in our brains that makes it hard to pull out of the anxious depressive s...”

“Eventually, all mentor-disciple relationships are meant to pull apart, usually sometime in the mid-30s. Those who hang on, eventually the mentor drops the disciple, and that's no fun.”

“I'd visually have that idea. I'm diving off the end of the diving board. I'm not going to be worried about if I'm going to dive into a jellyfish or the water's going to be too cold or the bo...”

“In the case of my husband, we found that facing a life-threatening illness prodded us to make a dramatic change in our lives.”

“In my memoir, I admit that I've been as fearful of success as of failure. In fact, when 'Passages' was published, I so dreaded bad reviews that I ran away to Italy with a girlfriend and our...”

“I know I'm never going to probably see the Taj Mahal or, you know, climb Mt. Everest, but I can still maybe influence peoples' way of thinking by a story that I do, by something I learn abou...”

“If you're the person living closest to the parent who's going to need help, and you take on the whole role of primary caregiver, you can be pretty sure your sibling who lives farthest away i...”

“Very few women manage to have it all; certainly not all at once.”

“It is a paradox that as we reach out prime, we also see there is a place where it finishes.”

“In the first phase of shock over, say, your mortgage being called in or your job washed out, it's essential to engage with others and share the fear, release the feelings, do fun things to t...”

“Over the next few years the boardrooms of America are going to light up with hot flashes.”

“One of the ways we women often handicap ourselves is thinking that once we've made a decision or a commitment, we can't change.”

“I found that female pathfinders generally integrate characteristics commonly associated with being women - like the capacity to be intimate - with 'male' ones like ambition and courage.”

“If you begin to think you are solely responsible for keeping your loved one alive and safe, you will eventually find yourself playing God. This phase can develop into an unhealthy, codepende...”

“The perceptions of middle age have their own luminosity.”