Quotes from Gail Sheehy

We are utterly convinced that all our notions spring full blown, as if by magic, from our own unique selves. At

Trying to stabilize—that is what the twenties are all about. The

Growing in tandem is virtually impossible in a patriarchal society, as ours has been. Only one-half of the couple has the use of that remarkable support system known as a wife. Added to this basic determinant of tempo is the rate of social change. Even in a relatively stagnant society, the odds are minimal that any couple can enjoy matched development.

What really happened with Serena and Jeb is that each was able to be strong in an area in which the other needed support. In

information about PTC and to find a leader in your area, call Jean McFalls at 503-413-8018 or e-mail [email protected]. PTC is offered collaboratively by many nonprofit organizations such as AARP, Area Agencies

The illusions of the 20s, however, may be essential to infuse our first commitments with excitement and intensity, and to sustain us in those commitments long enough to gain some experience in living.

If I've been convinced by one idea in the course of collecting all the life stories that inform the book, it is this: Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable but desirable. They mean growth.

To be really good at something, you can't be married. I believe that, along with Katharine Hepburn.

To come through this authenticity crisis, we must reexamine our purposes and reevaluate how to spend our resources from now on. "Why am I doing all this?" "What do I really believe in?" No matter what we have been doing, there will be parts of ourselves that have been suppressed and now need to find expression. "Bad" feelings will demand acknowledgment along with the good.

Today the smart man will use his early forties as preparation time. What does he need to learn to maximize his ability to respond quickly to a fluid marketplace?

Along the way, we discover that we are alone. We no longer have to ask permission because we are the providers of our own safety….There is grieving to be done because an old self is dying. By taking in our suppressed and even our unwanted parts, we prepare at the gut level for the reintegration of an identity that is ours and ours alone – not some artificial form put together to please the culture or our mates.

Just as the most successful industrial plants are adopting the concept of "agile manufacturing," so the most successful contract workers make themselves agile through developing multiple abilities.

What is disassembling is that narrow self we have thus far put together in a form tailored to please the culture and other people.

Nor is it automatic that once a person becomes acclaimed or powerful, the voice of the inner tyrant will be stilled. The work of individuation is internal. We all have to do it unless we prefer to remain very old children. Even when we do finally claim the authority formerly wielded by that inner custodian, we are not only freed but also bereft. We have lost the inner companion who for so many years also made us feel watched over and safe.

Would that there were an award for people who came 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; and when you have enough, you have self-respect.

Creativity could be described as letting go of certainties.

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.

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

THE GREAT HEROISM OF A SOBER LIFE is getting up in the morning and facing the day, greeting others, going out into the world with something to give. When we are in the grave of our own thoughts, feeling like we will never be able to crawl back out, our fingernails packed with dirt, how is it that sometime later we can be laughing, and laughing hard?

No two people can possibly coordinate all their developmental crises.

It is no longer enough to be competent and promising; a man wants now to be recognized and respected.

ONE OF THE terrifying aspects of the twenties is the conviction that the choices we make are irrevocable. If we choose a graduate school or join a firm, get married or don't marry, move to the suburbs or forego travel abroad, decide against children or against a career, we fear in our marrow that we might have to live with that choice forever.

Many of us are not consciously aware of such fears. With enough surface bravado to fool the people we meet, we fool ourselves as well. But the memory of formlessness is never far beneath. So we hasten to try on life's uniforms

Though loved ones move in and out of our lives, the capacity to love remains.