Ayelet Waldman quotes - page 2

The thing about youthful offenders is that no one seems to care about them. Most people don't like adolescents - even the good ones can be snarky and unpleasant. Combine the antipathy we feel toward the average teenager with the fear inspired by youth violence, and you have a population that no one wants to deal with. (Ayelet Waldman)
Well, you know, I was raised by a 1970s feminist. My mom had a consciousness-raising group. I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to them. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
Personally, I think four is the perfect number of children for our particular family. Four is enough to create the frenzied cacophony that my husband and I find so joyful. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
The stereotypical gay man is someone whose company I enjoy, someone who makes me laugh, someone I'd want my kid to be. The stereotypical gay woman makes me insecure, conscious of my failings as a feminist. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
My own husband was divorced when we met, but without kids. I don't know what I would have done if he'd had them. I got the message very early on that the worst mistake a woman can make is marrying a man with children. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I expend far too much of my maternal energies on guilt and regret. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I was a lesbian for a semester at Wesleyan - it was a graduation requirement. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint of despair, that sliver of malice, that makes them think, 'Aha, here is the story.' View quote
Ayelet Waldman
As a parent, the only thing I am absolutely certain of is my own fallibility. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I have two daughters and I have done everything in my power to prevent them from assimilating, even being aware of, my idiocy about my weight. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I love reader mail, and I do read it, but I won't read hate mail. (Ayelet Waldman)
My father is sure that Israel keeps the Holocaust from happening again. I worry that it might hasten its recurrence. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
The first inkling my husband had that I was thinking about suicide was when he checked my blog. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
Everyone knows now how early a fetus becomes a baby. Women who have been pregnant have seen their babies on ultrasounds. They know that there is a terrible truth to those horrific pictures the anti-choice fanatics hold up in front of abortion clinics. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
Despite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world, the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous? View quote
Ayelet Waldman
By presenting a faithful and honest record of my experience as a mother, I hope to show both my readers and my children how truth can redeem even what you fear might be the gravest of sins. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I always tell my kids that as soon as you have a secret, something about you that you are ashamed to have others find out, you have given other people the power to hurt you by exposing you. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I am an adamant feminist. It never occurred to me to take my husband's name when we married. I am a supporter of abortion rights, of equal pay for equal work, of the rights of women prisoners, of all the time-honored feminist causes, and then some. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I tend to approach giving interviews with the same sense of circumspection and restraint as I approach my writing. That is to say, virtually none. When asked what I made of blogs like my own, blogs written by parents about their children, I said, 'A blog like this is narcissism in its most obscene flowering.' View quote
Ayelet Waldman
I believe that mothers should tell the truth, even - no, especially - when the truth is difficult. It's always easier, and in the short term can even feel right, to pretend everything is okay, and to encourage your children to do the same. But concealment leads to shame, and of all hurts shame is the most painful. (Ayelet Waldman)
If producing a regular column is living out loud, then keeping a daily blog is living at the top of your lungs. For a couple of months there, I was shrieking like a banshee. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
Those of us whose parenting style can be described as "a series of reflexes, instincts, and minute-by-minute adjustments," as Julie of A Little Pregnant puts it, rather than as a philosophy, are less invested in our own practices. What we do is often less a matter of conviction than one of convenience. What we need to remember is that there is no need to apologize for that, even in the face of the most red-faced outrage. View quote
Ayelet Waldman
Why are the architects of the family-values agenda so eager to punish into the next generation? What is being served by seeking, quite literally, a tooth for a tooth? View quote
Ayelet Waldman
My kids are incredibly secure. More and more of their friends' parents are divorcing, but my kids have absolute confidence that we'll stay together forever. That goes a long, long way. View quote
Ayelet Waldman