Allison Pearson

My mother was a stay-at-home mom until I was about 11, when she got a job - and it was like a light came on inside her. It's not wrong to be passionate about your career. When you love what you do, you bring that stimulation back to your family. ”

It's not easy to reach the summit of your career by the age of 24 - and for the years after to be a humiliating scrabble downhill. ”

My son was about five or six months old, and he was ill, and I was sent to New York to interview three people back to back. I got home, and I saw my baby. He had been very ill, and he was on three kinds of antibiotics. I'd been away for eight days. I looked at him and thought, 'What am I doing? I'm a terrible mother and a terrible journalist.' ”

One thing that did give me pause for thought, when I told my female friends now that I was writing about a 13-year-old girl, without exception they all said, 'I would not go back to being 13 for a million pounds.' ”

Sometimes it's a relief just to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. ”

When you have kids, there's a tendency to put the marriage stew on the back burner and give it a quick stir now and then. But it's important to remember why you had children with this person. ”

Going through puberty, that Cape Canaveral of the hormones, young girls are in love with the idea of being in love, trying it out for sighs. ”

I've struggled with depression, and the signs that I was falling apart - having heart palpitations at 4 A.M. - were there for a long time before I paid attention. Even when my psychiatrist gave me a questionnaire, I found myself trying to circle the answers that made me seem like I wasn't a wreck. I've since learned to listen to my body. ”

We carry our younger selves with us our whole lives, and we can measure out of lives by music we've loved or icons we've loved. ”

If I had written a book saying, 'Ladies, your life is terrible,' I would have sold three copies. It's always better to laugh people into recognition. ”