It seems like, to me, somewhere between 30 and 35 is a really, really good time to turn your eggs into babies. – Gail Sheehy
You have a new role: family caregiver. It’s a role nobody applies for. You don’t expect it. You won’t be prepared. You probably won’t even identify yourself as a caregiver. – Gail Sheehy
The first thing one notices about Jill Abramson is her short stature. The second is her intensity. – Gail Sheehy
I keep returning to the central question facing over-50 women as we move into our Second Adulthood. What are our goals for this stage in our lives? – Gail Sheehy
Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough. – Gail Sheehy
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 woman in this book need to get a divorce? Why can’t she just shut up and be happy?’ – Gail Sheehy
I’ve had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn’t sell. Or not praised but then it sells. – Gail Sheehy
We see it in the body, that if you just give the body enough rest and comfort, it has remarkable self-healing capacities. Well, so does the spirit. – Gail Sheehy
Ah, mastery… what a profoundly satisfying feeling when one finally gets on top of a new set of skills… and then sees the light under the new door those skills can open, even as another door is closing. – Gail Sheehy
Sex and older women used to be considered an oxymoron, rarely mentioned in the same breath. – Gail Sheehy
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. – Gail Sheehy
There is no more defiant denial of one man’s ability to possess one woman exclusively than the prostitute who refuses to redeemed. – Gail Sheehy
I did not give my daughter the kind of childhood anybody would want. The vision of the divided loyalty between a mother and father who don’t live together and don’t share in decisions is a great depravation for children. – Gail Sheehy
Spontaneity, the hallmark of childhood, is well worth cultivating to counteract the rigidity that may otherwise set in as we grow older. – Gail Sheehy
I actually interviewed other people about myself, and that alerted me to the fact that I had to really investigate my memories. – Gail Sheehy
The feminist spirit still lives! It shows most boldly among younger women from the millennial generation. – Gail Sheehy
Adapting to our Second Adulthood is not all about the money. It requires thinking about how to find a new locus of identity or how to adjust to a spouse who stops working and who may loll, enjoying coffee and reading the paper online while you’re still commuting. – Gail Sheehy