Quotes from Gail Sheehy

When I was immobilized by fear, I might have a panic attack. I've had a couple of panic attacks in my life.

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 take your mind off it.

Men are not given awards and promotions for bravery in intimacy.

Frustration is the mother of risk.

Changes are not predictable but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation.

by operating on the principle of human and material obsolescence, America eats her history alive.

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 about the world.

You don't have to feel confident to act confident. In fact, it's the most important acting job you can learn.

I dare to do things - that's how I survive.

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.

When you have self-respect, you have enough.

Whether one has natural talent or not, any learning period requires the willingness to suffer uncertainty and embarrassment.

Like everyone else in the first weeks after the tragedy of 9/11, I was looking frantically for some way to help.

I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.

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.

This is something caregivers have to understand: You have to ask for help. You have to realize that you deserve to ask for help. Because you need to keep on working on your own life.

Jill Clayburgh's life so closely paralleled mine, I feel as though a part of me lived a little through her and died a little with her.

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 phoniness and admit, 'I am who I am.'

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

I'm a liberal, but I think there's so much that the private sector can do and does do.

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?

The source of continuing aliveness was to find your passion and pursue it, with whole heart and single mind.

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.

The feminist spirit still lives! It shows most boldly among younger women from the millennial generation.