Anna Quindlen Quotes

My life is mine to remember.

Your life is your own, to develop or to destroy. You can blame others little and yourself almost totally if that life is not a productive, worthy, full, and abundant one.

It's my life and my death.

When we are honest with ourselves we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are.

Regardless of whether one is a writer or a reader, one's task consists first of all in mastering a life that is one's own, not imposed or prescribed from without, no matter how noble its appearance may be. For each of us is issued but one life, and we know full well how it all ends.

This has always been my life and no one else's, and that's how it's always been since the day I came in it.

When I turned 30, I had this epiphany that my life is my own and my choices are my own.

Your legacy is being written by yourself. Make the right decisions.

So the life I have made May seem wrong to you But, I've never been surer It's my life to ruin My own way.

We need to be the authors of our own life.

Peak performance begins with your taking complete responsibility for your life and everything that happens to you.

The greatest lesson of life is that you are responsible for your life.

There are really only two ways to approach life - as victim or as gallant fighter - and you must decide if you want to act or react, deal your own cards or play with a stacked deck. And if you don't decide which way to play with life, it always plays with you.

You gotta make your own way. You gotta find a way. You gotta get it done. It's hard. It's tough. That's what I tell my students every day in class. I've been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I'm not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn't register with me.

You know, people make a lot of money talking about me, don't they? They just get on those shows, and they talk away. There's nothing I can do. And that's one of the great lessons I try to convey in my book, which my mother implanted in me as a young girl.. Is you can either be an actor in your own life, or a reactor in somebody else's.

Most people don't lead their own lives - they accept their lives

I cannot be other than what I am, and I am the choices of all my days.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

You are the only one who has to live your life.

Remember, it's not conditions but decisions that determine our lives.

The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself, other people spend it for you.

Our life is our own creation.

You see mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. One has only a life of one's own.

Don't blame anyone or anything for your situation or problems. When you do that, you are saying that you are powerless over your own life—which is utter crap. An empowering step to reclaiming your life is taking responsibility.