Paula Hawkins Quotes

I'm now in my late 30s, and I've been thinking a lot about marriage and family. To be honest, I've decided to push aside thoughts of marriage and personal questions for now.

I am just enjoying my youth but I want to settle down eventually.

I also find it interesting that a lot of people in their 30s are not married and don't have kids. There are a lot of people in this age bracket that are out there dating and trying to find love. And I never thought that at my age I would be.

Sometimes I'll be sitting on Facebook at home and see all these people getting married, having kids, having that life that I was told I should have. And sometimes I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Am I the stupid one here? Am I not doing what I'm supposed to do? And that's also equally as stressful.

When you're in your mid-thirties, the cult of people who have children around you all want you in their cult, and they constantly ask you, 'So when are you going to have a baby?'

The subject and the reality of having children came at the height of my career.

I don't think people should do things because you know, 'I am turning this age, I must go have a husband.' If you find somebody and it works out then have kids, it's very nice. But if you don't, you don't.

I always did think that when I turned 40, I'd start coming into my own.

My parents got married late and they had kids late, so I never felt a social or cultural thing to be married or pregnant or a homeowner by a certain age.

I remember Tom Stoppard saying to me when I came out, 'I feel so sorry for you, because you'll never have children.' These days I would say, 'Well, why not, Tom?'

Once I hit 25, people started asking me about marriage and kids all the time. I remember hitting 35 and some would ask the same questions with a strange tone, as if my life was somehow over because I hadn't yet settled into their version of happiness.

I've never thought about marriage or children.

My mom had me when she was 25, and I'm 28 now, and just to even imagine myself three years ago starting to have children and be married and have my career, it's pretty trippy, and I'm so proud and kind of in awe of her.

I'm Italian; I take my time. We're not really fast. We're very slow. I had my first child at 40, my second child at 45, James Bond at 50. I'm so curious as to what's next!

I don't think a baby is something that you should do because other people are doing it.

I never had a burning desire to have children. But then I met Nick, and I thought, 'This is the only person I'd do this with.' So we tried, but I was a little long in the tooth for that sort of thing. But we didn't turn it into a soap opera. We tried for about a year or so, and it didn't happen and took that to mean it wasn't meant to be.

I think marriage initially involves a lot of people who have nothing to do with your relationship, because it's a legally binding contract, and that has a weight to it.

When I was growing up, I kept hoping that I wasn't really gay because I wanted to have children. I went through a long, tortured period, so the fact that I have been able to be true to myself and have a family has been the nicest surprise of my adulthood.

I think I was probably, at one point, a very needy friend, and as you grow up and you have your own life and get married or not and have kids or not, and life goes, and it grows, and you grow with it, and - I think I'm a better friend now.

Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I had jobs that I loved. I worked in city government. I ran a youth organization. I served as an associate dean at a university. And I couldn't imagine how a baby would fit into all of that.

It's a constant thing we do in life... I marry someone or have kids; these are the evolutions of life that we go on. There are constant shifts.

I'm young but I can't wait to marry and have kids.

When you're single, you're not beholden to anyone, and you can shut down more easily. In the past, I had the idea that I'd live in a caravan with a dog near a pub with no responsibilities. But now, when bad things happen in the world, I feel responsible for them because they're going to impact on my daughter.

Later in life there should not be any regrets. Sometimes you have children too early and regret it, 'If I wouldn't have, my career would have been different' and sometimes when you don't have, you miss that opportunity.

A lot of people who wrote for 'Sex and the City' have gone to write about marriage and motherhood.