Quotes from Candace Bushnell

When it comes to people--don't write about who you know, but what you know of human nature.

Rule number one: Why is it that the one time a cute guy talks to you, you have a friend who's in crisis?

I stare up the stars, intensely aware of his body a few inches from mine. If this isn't romance, I don't know what is.

I take his hand in mine, running my fingers over the palm. His hands are lovely and lean, and I can't help thinking about those hands on my body. The sexiest part of a man is his hands.

Sex. It's the biggest sham of all. I mean, your whole life, all you ever hear is how you're supposed to save yourself for marriage. And how it's so special. And then you finally do it. And you're like, that's it? This is what everyone's been raving about?

It's like now that I'm looking for inequality, I'm seeing it everywhere, categorizing a thousand great and small unfairnesses everywhere I go. Why didn't I really see this before?

Is this better or worse than being married and living in the suburbs? Better or worse? Who can tell?

Be flirty but not too flirty. Be confident but not aggressive. Be funny but in a low-key, quiet way. Eat cheeseburgers, but don't get fat. Be chill, but don't lose control.

Am I going to spend the rest of my life trying to get some kind of approval from him that he's never going to give?

Everyone thinks they know so goddamned much about everything and no one knows fuck all about anything.

The city was different back then--poor and crumbling--kept alive only by the gritty determination and steely cynicism of its occupants. But underneath the dirt was the apple-cheeked optimism of possibility, and while she worked, the whole city seemed to throb along with her.

And then he was there, staring at me from behind the screen door. I'd like to say he no longer affected me, that seeing him was a disappointment. But it wasn't true. I felt as strongly about him as I had on that first day I'd seen him in calculus class.

Out of all the neighborhoods in Manhattan, Soho in particular had the charged atmosphere of a movie set, populated with passersby who looked like extras from Central Casting, so perfectly did they fit into this environment. There was the feeling of everything being not quite real, or too perfectly cliched to actually be true, and it began to rain in a fine, misty drizzle from a black patent leather sky.

I'm a realist. Just because you had sex once doesn't mean you have to fall in love.

No one is too busy to pick up the phone, to make a one-minute phone call. No matter how busy they say they are.

He's such an asshole you'd never believe he could be religious, but he is.

He still went out nearly every night. I thought, is this what he's going to do when we have the baby? Have I made another terrible mistake with a man? You don't really know a man until you have a child with him. Then you see so much. Is he kind? Is he tolerant? Is he loving? Or is he immature and egotistical and selfish? When you have a child, it can go two ways with your husband: You love him even more, or you lose all respect for him. And if you lose respect, there's no way to get it back...

I could live here forever. Maybe even become real New Yorker someday.

There's no such thing as writer's block, she proclaimed. If you can't write it's because you don't have anything to say. Or you're avoiding something.

His mother had become impossible, as, he supposed, all elderly people were when they refused to accept that their lives had to change.

Lots of famous people are late bloomers. My father says it's an advantage to be a late bloomer. Because when good things start happening, you're ready for it.

Being a writer is all about having something to say. And it'd better be interesting. If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't become a writer. Become something useful. Like a doctor.

But there are so many unspoken rules for navigating high school - for navigating life, maybe - that I can't help but try to figure out which one I broke to get myself into this situation.... There are so many rules for girls.

When one good thing happened to you, other good things seemed to follow.