Anna Quindlen Quotes

I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, 'Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.'

We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.

A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

Most of us don't know about happiness until it's over.

It's not a bad idea to occasionally spend a little time thinking about things you take for granted. Plain everyday things.

I think I'm learning how to release every day. Recognizing that everything you encounter, touch, or love can become part of you, and in essence never disappears, as long as you can recall it to memory or heart. It's all so connected that we lose everything, but also, we never lose anything.

I made a note in my head to be aware of things as they were happening, because they might not happen again. Up to that point, I was not really that appreciative of what was going on, or thinking about documenting life in a plainspoken manner. I was talking about my life and writing songs, but then I would go back and listen and they were about dreams, and legends, and metaphors and that was just not my life!

Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.

Recognize joy when it arrives in the plain brown wrappings of everyday life.

I wish we could edit our lives, be more selective with whom we spend time and what we spend our money on. To appreciate more what we all have - we appreciate things more when we lose them.

Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.

Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things.

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?

This morning of the small snow I count the blessings, the leak in the faucet which makes of the sink time, the drop of the water on water.

I can't be smug, because I know that you can lose anything at any point. And I can't be angry, because I haven't lost it.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

When I was in college, my parents' house burned down, and took a lot of the possessions I'd grown up with. That's probably one thing that made me realize material stuff is not really that important.

The more you own, the more you know you don't own.

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer.

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.

I've had an amazing career and amazing blessings. But I'm an everyday person, and I have lived an everyday life, and I drive an everyday car.

From about 5 years old on, I was very contemplative and started to become constantly filled with nostalgia for the present moment and the feeling that it's always fleeting.

I don't mean to be overly sensitive or anything like that, but you just have to take a minute in every day, and just reflect on where you are, and just realise what you've got, because you just never know where the next huge change in your life is going to come from.

I'm living in the present, thinking about the past, hoping for the future.

You appreciate things after you lose them.