“The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.”

“The beauty of “spacing” children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones — which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.”

“If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?”

“Regret for things we have done can be tempered by time, it is regret for things we have not done that is inconsolable.”

“An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.”

“The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.”

“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice — that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.”