Quotes from Gail Sheehy

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

It seems like, to me, somewhere between 30 and 35 is a really, really good time to turn your eggs into babies.

Leaders are people we as followers want to regard with awe as the fullest flowering of our own possibilities.

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.

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.

To hear how special and wonderful we are is endlessly enthralling.

When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women just go right on cooking.

Transformation also means looking for ways to stop pushing yourself so hard professionally or inviting so much stress.

The delights of self-discovery are always available.

We have to move from the unbridled pursuit of self-gain at the expense of others to recovering appreciation for what we gain by caring and sharing with one another.

Although there are many trial marriages... there is no such thing as a trial child.

It was so naive to think that there was nothing interesting that happened after 55. Come on, there's a whole second adulthood!

If you're the person living closest to the parent who's going to need help, and you take on the whole role of primary caregiver, you can be pretty sure your sibling who lives farthest away is going to call you and say, 'You don't know what you're doing.' Because they're not on the spot, and they probably feel guilty.

When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking.

There is no more defiant denial of one man's ability to possess one woman exclusively than the prostitute who refuses to redeemed.

If you begin to think you are solely responsible for keeping your loved one alive and safe, you will eventually find yourself playing God. This phase can develop into an unhealthy, codependent relationship.

I do think women can have it all - but not all women. If you take daring steps and are smart about it, you can probably have it all. But you might have to wait a while.

I found that female pathfinders generally integrate characteristics commonly associated with being women - like the capacity to be intimate - with 'male' ones like ambition and courage.

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.

Career-driven millennials are strategic about working obsessively while they are single and earning enough money to afford advanced education. Most are patient enough to wait until 30 or later to develop their dream.

If every day is an awakening, you will never grow old. You will just keep growing.

The present never ages. Each moment is like a snowflake, unique, unspoiled, unrepeatable, and can be appreciated in its surprisingness.

Young women who I think do the best job of balancing family life and a big career start businesses or work for themselves. That's the best way of being in charge of your life.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!