The world is full of women blindsided by the unceasing demands of motherhood, still flabbergasted by how a job can be terrific and torturous.

Or what about the statue in California currently said to be crying bloody tears? Why worry about the alleged weeping of a plaster effigy when so many actual human beings have reason to cry?

—Anna Quindlen

O ye of little faith, who believe that somehow the birth of Christ is dependent upon acknowledgment in a circular from OfficeMax!

—Anna Quindlen

I can't think of anything to write about except families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society.

—Anna Quindlen

I think that anyone who comes upon a Nautilus machine suddenly will agree with me that its prototype was clearly invented at some time in history when torture was considered a reasonable alternative to diplomacy.

—Anna Quindlen

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

—Anna Quindlen

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers' names.

—Alice Walker

I got my first full-time job, but it's weird. I could swear I was making more money in college, working for my parents as their daughter.

—Melanie Reno

We are the people our parents warned us about.

—Jimmy Buffett

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.

—Nancy Friday

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.

—P. J. O'Rourke