Quotes by Gail Sheehy

About Gail Sheehy:

Gail Sheehy is an American author, journalist, and lecturer. She is the author of seventeen books, including Passages (1976), named by the Library of Congress one of the ten most influential books of our times. Sheehy has written biographies and character studies of major twentieth-century leaders, including Hillary Clinton, both presidents Bush, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Her latest book, Daring: My Passages, (Sept. 2014) is a memoir.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The perceptions of middle age have their own luminosity.

Gail Sheehy

To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist.

Gail Sheehy

I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.

Gail Sheehy

Being a pathfinder is to be willing to risk failure and still go on.

Gail Sheehy

In my memoir, I admit that I've been as fearful of success as of failure. In fact, when 'Passages' was published, I so dreaded bad reviews that I ran away to Italy with a girlfriend and our children to hide out.

Gail Sheehy

Family caregiving has become a predictable crisis. Americans are living longer and longer but dying slower and slower.

Gail Sheehy

You have a new role: family caregiver. It's a role nobody applies for. You don't expect it. You won't be prepared. You probably won't even identify yourself as a caregiver.

Gail Sheehy

I found that female pathfinders generally integrate characteristics commonly associated with being women - like the capacity to be intimate - with 'male' ones like ambition and courage.

Gail Sheehy

We really only have two choices. Play it safe, or take a chance. For me, pulling back because of fear has always made me feel worse.

Gail Sheehy

I do think taking the 20s to take the most chances you can is important, because you're not going to hurt anyone else during that time. And if you do have a partner, you need a couple years to rehearse that relationship.

Gail Sheehy

I'd visually have that idea. I'm diving off the end of the diving board. I'm not going to be worried about if I'm going to dive into a jellyfish or the water's going to be too cold or the boys are going to beat me. I'm just doing it. And if I do it, ...

Gail Sheehy

In the case of my husband, we found that facing a life-threatening illness prodded us to make a dramatic change in our lives.

Gail Sheehy

One of the ways we women often handicap ourselves is thinking that once we've made a decision or a commitment, we can't change.

Gail Sheehy

In rough times, pathfinders rely on work, friends, humor and prayer. They develop a support network.

Gail Sheehy

Career-driven millennials are strategic about working obsessively while they are single and earning enough money to afford advanced education. Most are patient enough to wait until 30 or later to develop their dream.

Gail Sheehy

Most women have learned a great deal about how to set goals for our First Adulthood and how to roll with the punches when we hit a rough passage. But we're less prepared for our Second Adulthood as we approach life after retirement, where there are n...

Gail Sheehy

I did not give my daughter the kind of childhood anybody would want. The vision of the divided loyalty between a mother and father who don't live together and don't share in decisions is a great depravation for children.

Gail Sheehy

Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough.

Gail Sheehy

It seems like, to me, somewhere between 30 and 35 is a really, really good time to turn your eggs into babies.

Gail Sheehy

It was my very good fortune to find a mentor, Clay Felker, who started my career at the 'New York Magazine' as a freelance writer when I had to quit my job at the 'Herald Tribune' to stay home with my young daughter.

Gail Sheehy

Author Bio

  • NameGail Sheehy
  • DescriptionWriter, biographer
  • BornNovember 15, 1937
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Novelist