Leila Slimani Quotes

It's very hard to balance being there for somebody else and taking care of yourself.

When you're a stay-at-home mother you have to pretend it's really boring, but it's not. It's enriching and fulfilling, and an amazing experience. And then when you're a working mother you have to pretend that you feel guilty all day long.

I used to tell moms that for the sake of their well-being they had to put themselves first. But I know now that's not always possible.

I give and give, and sometimes I can't find me. I'm sure many moms and wives go down that same rabbit hole.

People expect you to change when you become a mother, and of course my priorities changed when I had Violet. She's number one in my life and the best thing that ever happened to me, but I still have fun. I am still myself, but that is made out to seem like I am rebelling against motherhood.

Many working mothers feel guilty about not being at home. And when they are there, they wish it could be perfect. This pressure to make every minute happy puts working parents in a bind when it comes to setting limits and modifying behavior.

There's a lot of projection that if you're in service then you shouldn't look good. I'm no different from anybody else. I like clothes, I like shoes, I like to go have nice dinners, I like to dance. Just because I've dedicated myself to serving women, why do you think I need to sacrifice myself?

Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away.

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

I'm always helping out girlfriends, and then I'm wondering, who's going to look after me?

I have to feel OK with taking some time for myself, not feeling guilty that I don't spend my every free second with my son, which is sometimes tough.

To me, full-time mothering felt like way too much and yet not nearly enough. Lost in a landslide of diapers, birthday parties, and others' needs, I ached to reestablish myself.

I realized I was trained my whole life to be an accommodating person, to make sure that everybody is comfortable before I'm comfortable. After giving so much of myself to strangers, I learned to care for myself a little more, especially on tour.

It's such a difficult thing for women, especially, to admit when we're not coping, because we're supposed to be all right with all the different roles we're born with and are piled on us later on.

Eternally, woman spills herself away in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim.

If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those you love, you will end by hating those to whom you have sacrificed yourself.

Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.

We women feel we are here to serve. That's the mistake we make. We may have children, husbands, lovers, bills, responsibility. Those things don't own us, but too often we let them.

As a woman and as a mother, as a young mother, I felt guilty about being successful.

I was putting on a stiff upper lip and trying to fulfill the obligations I thought were demanded of me, taking over my father's role of taking care of my mother... and having to be the recipient of her confessions and emotions but of a delusional nature.

There's a lot of pressure on young women. We need more honest women who are willing to talk about their struggles.

I certainly know women who had children, quit their jobs, and still have full-time nannies. That's who these women are: Even to the detriment of their own relationship with their kids, they want to appear perfect Martha Stewart moms.

There's a different expectation, not just on mothers but on women. We're expected to do it all, to have it all, and look good through the process and have a smile on our face, and that's not always the case.

I work in the studio all day, and then I go for a walk with my dog, listening to music on headphones. And Saturday and Sundays, work is strictly out of bounds. It has to be.

Despite fashioning myself a very unconventional lifestyle with my music, I had ended up in a really conventional situation. I was also guilty of becoming a people-pleaser, which is absolutely exhausting and not a sustainable way of living. It can be so damaging to fall into that trap, especially in close relationships.