Quotes from Carole Radziwill

was Aristotle who said it: "All human actions have one or more of seven causes," and then he named them: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.

Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface:

Tragedy whores don't feel the foundation break apart beneath their feet—the reeling blast of emptiness, though to watch them you might think so. They're voyeurs. They feed like coffin flies on drama, embroiled in virtual grief and the illusion of heartbreak. They all have stories they want to tell, insist on telling, proclaiming their link to tragedy. Emotional rubberneckers. I

The dandelion is a gawky yellow flower that blooms and then collapses into a soft, clumsy down that little children blow wishes on.

You never stop thinking you might have beaten it somehow, and there were moments when we thought we had. Your husband can be dead years, and you can't stop thinking how you might have beaten it. Or how they could have left ten minutes earlier, or the next morning. Or that damn lighthouse could have flickered through the fog.

Maybe in ten or twenty years we'll look back on chemotherapy and gasp. Another generation may be appalled that we ever did this, dripped poison through a needle into a person's body to make him well. ?

Nothing is ever as it seems. We hide our reality from the outside world and from each other. We float along on process, Anthony and I—What will we have for dinner, did you call your mother, what time do you think you'll be home? Phone calls and kisses and thank-you notes. You can lose a whole life on that.

Carolyn has great faith in the zodiac. She gives me a copy of The Secret Language of Relationships and refers me to it regularly. She can tell a person's sign after talking to him for ten minutes, and then how to fix his life, but I lack her intuitive skill, her propensity to solve. I lack her swift stroke.

One of my greatest extravagances is smelly candles. I'm embarrassed to say, but I spend a disproportionate amount of money on candles. It adds up.

I think every girl needs a good lip split story, I have one. I fell onto my front door doorknob coming back from the mailbox, once.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a delusional Housewife in possession of an audience must be in want of a ludicrous storyline.

Moving on' is a concept invented by Housewives. Housewives who behave so appallingly all they can do is say they are moving on, preferably in a place where everyone can hear them. To stay put and acknowledge that their actions have consequences and to accept responsibility is simply too painful for this particular brand of narcissist.

There's nothing more riveting than a contractually obligated 'Housewife' sit-down.

All play and no work makes me a happy girl

There are things I'm never late for. I'm not late for the theater; I'm not late for the movies; I'm not late if my single girlfriend is at a bar somewhere. But if I'm on vacation in Mexico with a bunch of cackling hens, then I'm going to be late for dinner - count on it.

I spent time in refugee camps in Southeast Asia, and in the projects of Chicago. I've been to State dinners with Presidents. I met the Queen of England on a beach in Anguilla. No one is any more valuable or important than you are. No one is more important than your family and your friends.

When you own an apartment in NewYork, it's important to know what's happening in your building. Each building runs as its own little municipal town. Much like you might be interested in knowing what is happening in your town because it has a direct effect on the value of your property.

The rumors of Radziwill fortune have been vastly overstated.

I'm good in an emergency.