Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. ”

What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. Look at us. We run a tightrope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now! This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. ”

I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living. ”

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded. ”

Don't wish me happiness - I don't expect to be happy it's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor - I will need them all. ”

One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay 'in kind' somewhere else in life. ”

For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair. ”

Life is a gift, given in trust - like a child. ”

Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves; that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships. ”

The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls - women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. ”