Anna Quindlen Quotes

My career is really important to me, but there have to be other great, important things in your life besides work.

I was never really a career woman. My life always came first.

I don't live for my work. My life is my life. That's more important, and I think that helps my work.

You have to have something in your life that's more important than the work. People don't really like to admit that. They say, 'Oh, my work is my most important thing.'

Your profession should give you enjoyment, but it should never be your life.

Life comes before the business.

The school asks a person who has achieved a certain level of career success to give you a speech telling you that career success is not important.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

We need to establish boundaries between our personal and professional lives. When we don't, our work, our health, and our personal lives suffer.

I'm trying to figure out the trick of working to live as opposed to living to work, but I don't know if I've quite stumbled upon it just yet.

I wanted more control of my life. I wanted work to fit in, not to dominate; to support, not to lead the pattern of my life.

A career is all very well, but no one lives by work alone.

A person should design the way he makes a living around how he wishes to make a life.

Life is more important than work.

Ha, well you see... this notion of a balanced life, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to have that... but I can have what I call an integrated life.

Many people worry so much about managing their careers, but rarely spend half that much energy managing their LIVES. I want to make my life, not just my job, the best it can be. The rest will work itself out.

More than anything, I just think about what roles I take on and make sure that it's really something that I feel passionate about if I'm going to leave home and go work.

I love my work, and I feel fortunate to be doing a job I love, but it isn't the centre of my life.

I cannot do more than two films at a time. I like to have a life besides films. That is very important to me.

I don’t take my life seriously, but I do take what I do – in my life – seriously -

I think everyone is always asking themselves, How is my work meaningful, how is my life meaningful? As I get older, I feel like who I am as a person and a citizen is more important than who I am in my work. But I do think it reframed slightly for me, how much I have to care about a project in order to want to do it. Sometimes, obviously, you have a take a job for money. But I think I'm quicker now when I get a script that's, say, borderline misogynist, I'm not going to go in for it. I'm thinking more about what I'm putting into the world.

I don't want to think my life as a career.

Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should Work is not all of life. Your co-workers shouldn't be your only friends. Schedule life and defend it just as you would an important business meeting. Never tell yourself "I'll just get it done this weekend."

My intention for my life is to stay centered, and from that intention come my priorities: my son, my family, my job, my self. That then informs what kind of work I can take on. It's a balancing act, but a fun one.

Do not get so concerned with making a living that you forget to make a life.