Anna Quindlen Quotes

"Great suffering has a silver-lining that we can be grateful for, because it builds up a human being and puts him or her within reach of self-knowledge."

I travel so much and am always living out of a suitcase, so my favorite saying is 'Wherever you go, there you are'. I love it because it's reassuring to me that you have to live in the moment wherever you happen to be.

Don't let your wounds make you become someone you're not.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we're able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

The main thing I've learned is that we all have to learn to work with - and appreciate - the brain we've been given, and not waste time wishing things were easier.

I'm grateful for all the experiences, even the negative ones.

When you go through heartbreak, you just do the things that get you by. Eventually, you realise it's about making the most of life.

There is really only one way to deal with Misery. Accept her presence. Like most experiences in life, we must acknowledge the passage gracefully and let her move through our lives because she brings with her a hidden gift.

I can't help but be thankful, and really appreciate everything I have been through, good and bad, because it got me here!

Every failure, every adversity, every heartache may be a blessing in disguise providing it softens the animal portion of our nature.

I love life. But it is hard and I have so much, so very much to learn.

And I reminded myself that it's easy to be grateful for the obvious blessings in life, much harder to be grateful for the tough moments and the lessons they teach.

One learns better than to hand one's choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns.

It's been a tough year. . . Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together.

Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.

In a funny way, when things went wrong in my life - and it is my fault that they went wrong, it is not anyone else's fault - and all the glittering outside things were taken away, I was left with the things of most value.

Every year, I appreciate life more because of the deeper understanding of what it took to get this far.

I have so much love that I didn't even know about.

All my life, since the time I was little, has been a long distraction. At least that is the way some people want to perceive it, but for me, it's given me a lot of strength.

I am a believer in the journey and enjoying the journey.

Certain stories we carry with us, events in our life, they define who we are. It's not a matter of getting over anything; we have to make the best of it.

Deliverance is about what I went through the first time. And I chalk it up as a learning experience.

Learn not only to find what you like, learn to like what you find.

I think sometimes in life we rush and only later look back and say, 'Wow, that was something pretty cool that I did,' and we realize we should have been more aware while it was happening.