Excerpts to Help Stay Sane - Quindlen

Link to Web page for FridayLive! special session "Staying Sane - in Insane Times"

A. "...always searching for some version of the truth...They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence…"

B. "...biggest mistake I made is ...I did not live in the moment enough..."

As of May 1, 2007, you can find the full text of the Preface, 1st two essays in Chapter 1

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/bookExcerpt/978081297027

A. "Real reporters are always searching for some version of the truth so that, in the long run, they can assemble the truth about the world out of all the stories they have covered and the things they have learned. That is why, in contrast to the common belief that they are the world’s great cynics, the best journalists are the world’s great idealists. They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence. For every disgrace there is a triumph, for every wrong there is a moment of justice, for every funeral a wedding, for every obituary a birth announcement."

Above is from the preface of Loud and Clear, by Anna Quindlen, Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (March 29, 2005)

B. Below an exceprt from the same book about life - with 3 young children.

Chapter 1 "Heart" "Good-Bye Dr. Spock":

"But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."