Ellen Goodman Quotes (24 Quotes)


    How did we end the summer ... stuck between a Roberts and a hard place We've spent months poring over 60,000 pages from the National Archives and reams of personal profiles for clues about how John Roberts would rule on the highest court in land. ... The bottom line is that barring some last minute photo of John Roberts popping out of a cake at a KKK rally smoking crack, he's going to be confirmed. And if he were magically derailed, who would be next ... John Roberts may turn out to be as far right as People for the American Way says. But he may also be as good as it gets under this administration.

    There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over - and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its value.

    You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever.

    I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.

    We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives . . ., not looking for flaws, but for potential.


    Values are not trendy items that are casually traded in.

    Now that we have waved 'Bye, Bye, Brownie' to Michael Brown, the hapless head of FEMA, could we turn our sights back to another agency on the skids the Food and Drug Administration.

    We owned what we learned back there; the experience and the growth are grafted into our lives.

    Frankly, people who buy Showtime pay-per-view are supporting him and supporting the notion that you can get away with anything.

    Socrates might respond this way How does one rehabilitate a man who won't acknowledge having sinned How do you heal somebody who doesn't admit they want it ... Even your basic 12-step programs say you have to admit what your behavior was.

    Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience - unless they are still up.

    We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck . . . But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.

    Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.

    In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.

    We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

    Once upon a time we were just plain people. But that was before we began having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you are reduced to a factor.

    In the biotech revolution, it is the human body, not iron or steel or plastic, that's at the source. Are the biocapitalists going to be allowed to dig without consent into our genetic codes, then market them

    Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to them. Once the chorus of cultural values was full of ministers, teachers, neighbors, leaders. They demanded more conformity, but offered more support. Now the messengers are violent cartoon characters, rappers and celebrities selling sneakers. Parents are considered 'responsible' only if they are successful in their resistance. Thats what makes child-raising harder. Its not just that American families have less time with their kids its that we have to spend more of this time doing battle with our own culture.

    What do I want to take home from my summer vacation Time. The wonderful luxury of being at rest. The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander. The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are. Summer is my period of grace.


    The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.

    Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.

    some people hate the president so much that it's impossible to have a conversation with them.

    When we describe what the other person is really like, I suppose we often picture what we want. We look through the prism of our need.


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