Gail Sheehy

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

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

“Over the next few years the boardrooms of America are going to light up with hot flashes.”

“The delights of self-discovery are always available.”

“One of the ways we women often handicap ourselves is thinking that once we've made a decision or a commitment, we can't change.”

“I found the happiest woman in America is between 50 and 55, is happily married, has made significant progress in her career, and lives in a community where she can easily exercise outside. But the most important single thing was she had her last child before she was 35.”

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

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

“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.”

“Stress overload makes us stupid. Solid research proves it. When we get overstressed, it creates a nasty chemical soup in our brains that makes it hard to pull out of the anxious depressive spiral.”

“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.”

“The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.”

“Spontaneity, the hallmark of childhood, is well worth cultivating to counteract the rigidity that may otherwise set in as we grow older.”

“In 2009, I served as AARP's Ambassador of Caregiving. With a producer and cameraman, I traveled the country for months, interviewing hundreds of caregivers.”

“The first thing one notices about Jill Abramson is her short stature. The second is her intensity.”

“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.'”

“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.”

“Creativity could be described as letting go of certainties.”

“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.”

“We really only have two choices. Play it safe, or take a chance. For me, pulling back because of fear has always made me feel worse.”