Ellen Goodman Quotes

Quotes about:

• We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.

  Ellen Goodman

  New Year, Drawing, Years

  74 Copy quote

• Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.

  Ellen Goodman

  Jobs, Humor, Order

  34 Copy quote

• Ultimately, time is all you have and the idea isn't to save it, but to savour it.

  Ellen Goodman

  Ideas, Mindfulness, Savour

  Ellen Goodman (1986). “Close to Home”, Fawcett Books

  18 Copy quote

• I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.

  Ellen Goodman

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  40 Copy quote

• There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over - and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives.

  Ellen Goodman

  Sad Love, Letting Go, Jobs

  "Ellen Goodman writes of letting go in her final column" by Ellen Goodman, www.washingtonpost.com. January 1, 2010.

  29 Copy quote

• It has begun to occur to me that life is a stage I'm going through.

  Ellen Goodman

  Life, Life Is, Stage

  Ellen Goodman (1986). “Close to Home”, Fawcett Books

  4 Copy quote

• We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.

  Ellen Goodman

  Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude

  Ellen Goodman (1981). “At Large”

  42 Copy quote

• The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.

  Ellen Goodman

  Inspirational, Children, Struggle

  24 Copy quote

• Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.

  Ellen Goodman

  Inspiring, New Year, Inspiration

  31 Copy quote

• This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it's the family stories that are worth the storage.

  Ellen Goodman

  Stories, Next, Generations

  "Spring cleaning our lives" by Ellen Goodman, www.sfgate.com. April 13, 2002.

  6 Copy quote

• Taboos are falling across our culture like dominoes. What was unspeakable yesterday dominates talk shows today.

  Ellen Goodman

  Fall, Yesterday, Culture

  5 Copy quote

• How come pleasure never makes it on to... a dutiful list of do's and don'ts? Doesn't joy also get soft and flabby if you neglect to exercise it?

  Ellen Goodman

  Exercise, Joy, Lists

  10 Copy quote

• Values are not trendy items that are casually traded in.

  Ellen Goodman

  Trendy, Items, Values

  Ellen Goodman (1990). “Making Sense”, Penguin Group USA

  7 Copy quote

• instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instant. You get reactions.

  Ellen Goodman

  Real, Opinion, Reactions

  6 Copy quote

• When you live alone, you can be sure that the person who squeezed the toothpaste tube in the middle wasn't committing a hostile act.

  Ellen Goodman

  Toothpaste, Middle, Persons

  Ellen Goodman (1986). “Close to Home”, Fawcett Books

  5 Copy quote

• Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.

  Ellen Goodman

  Mistake, Sometimes, Made

  14 Copy quote

• We want our children to fit in and to stand out. We rarely address the conflict between these goals.

  Ellen Goodman

  Children, Goal, Excellence

  Ellen Goodman (1990). “Making Sense”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

• We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

  Ellen Goodman

  Mother, Distance, Father

  Ellen Goodman (1983). “At Large”, Fawcett Books

  13 Copy quote

• Forty is ... an age at which people have histories and options. At thirty, they had perhaps less history. At fifty, perhaps fewer options.

  Ellen Goodman

  People, Age, Fifty

  Ellen Goodman (1981). “At Large”

  13 Copy quote

• Age is an accumulation of life and loss. Adulthood is a series of lines crossed.

  Ellen Goodman

  Loss, Age, Lines

  Ellen Goodman (2010). “Paper Trail: Common Sense in Uncommon Times”, p.334, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.

  Ellen Goodman

  Encouraging, Confidence, Hate

  8 Copy quote

• Civility, it is said, means obeying the unenforceable.

  Ellen Goodman

  Mean, Civility, Said

  4 Copy quote

• People have been writing premature obituaries on the women's movement since its beginning.

  Ellen Goodman

  Writing, People, Movement

  4 Copy quote

• women who once aspired to the image of superwoman now worry about becoming superdrudge. Those who wanted to have it all now ask whether they have to do it all.

  Ellen Goodman

  Worry, Becoming, Superwoman

  Ellen Goodman (1990). “Making Sense”, Penguin Group USA

  6 Copy quote

• Women have gained access to the institutions, but not enough power to overhaul them.

  Ellen Goodman

  Enough, Institutions, Access

  5 Copy quote

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