Ellen Goodman Quotes

“All in all, I am not surprised that the people who want to unravel the social contract start with young adults. Those who are urged to feel afraid, very afraid, have both the greatest sense of independence and the most finely honed skepticism about government.”

“Civility, it is said, means obeying the unenforceable.”

“How come pleasure never makes it on to a dutiful list of do's and don'ts? Doesn't joy also get soft and flabby if you neglect to exercise it?”

“I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.”

“I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words – then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.”

“I think most of us become self-critical as soon as we become self-conscious.”

“I think that having a job in journalism, despite all of the changes, is still a fantastic way to be – make a living observing your society and having a chance to use your voice.”

“I vote because even the lesser of two evils is the lesser of two evils.”

“I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.”

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

“In today's amphetamine world of news junkies, speed trumps thoughtfulness too often.”

“It is, I suppose, the business of grandparents to create memories and the relative of memories: traditions. We want to lodge moments, like snapshots, in the fleeting video of time.”

“It's self-deceptive to think we're in a post-feminist world when we never tried a feminist world.”

“Maybe at 20 you can write well, but I don't think you could do what I do. Some things have to happen to you first.”

“My father used to say that if a man fools you once, he's a jerk. If he fools you twice, you're a jerk. Only he didn't use the word 'jerk'.”

“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.”

“On television, journalists now routinely appear on talk-shows-with-an-attitude where they are encouraged to say what they think about something they may not have finished thinking about.”

“Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.”

“People have been writing premature obituaries on the women's movement since its beginning.”

“Pro-choice supporters are often heard using the cool language of the courts and the vocabulary of rights. Americans who are deeply ambivalent about abortion often miss the sound of caring.”

“Taboos are falling across our culture like dominoes. What was unspeakable yesterday dominates talk shows today.”

“The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.”

“The great myth of our work-intense era is 'quality time'. We believe we can make up for the loss of days or hours, especially with each other, by concentrated minutes. But ultimately there is no way to do one-minute mothering. There is no way to pay attention in a hurry.”

“The same people who tell us that smoking doesn't cause cancer are now telling us that advertising cigarettes doesn't cause smoking.”

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

“The truth is that we can overhaul our surroundings, renovate our environment, talk a new game, join a new club, far more easily than we can change the way we respond emotionally. It is easier to change behavior than feelings about that behavior.”

“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 validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.”

“Today, much of journalism and politics are in a kind of collusion to oversimplify and personalize issues. No room for ambivalence. Plenty of room for the personal attack.”

“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.”

“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.”