Explore Quotes by Gail Sheehy

I found that female pathfinders generally integrate characteristics commonly associated with being women - like the capacity to be intimate - with 'male' ones like ambition and courage.

My husband, Clay Felker, died 17 years after his first cancer due to secondary conditions that developed from treatment.

You don't have to feel confident to act confident. In fact, it's the most important acting job you can learn.

In the first phase of shock over, say, your mortgage being called in or your job washed out, it's essential to engage with others and share the fear, release the feelings, do fun things to take your mind off it.

Be willing to shed parts of your previous life. For example, in our 20s, we wear a mask; we pretend we know more than we do. We must be willing, as we get older, to shed cocktail party phoniness and admit, 'I am who I am.'

Jill Clayburgh's life so closely paralleled mine, I feel as though a part of me lived a little through her and died a little with her.

Married at 23, a mother at 24, and blindsided by divorce at 28, I found myself struggling, like many young women I meet today, to strike a balance between my personal life and my career.

If you begin to think you are solely responsible for keeping your loved one alive and safe, you will eventually find yourself playing God. This phase can develop into an unhealthy, codependent relationship.

In rough times, pathfinders rely on work, friends, humor and prayer. They develop a support network.

One of the ways we women often handicap ourselves is thinking that once we've made a decision or a commitment, we can't change.

In 2009, I served as AARP's Ambassador of Caregiving. With a producer and cameraman, I traveled the country for months, interviewing hundreds of caregivers.

If you're the person living closest to the parent who's going to need help, and you take on the whole role of primary caregiver, you can be pretty sure your sibling who lives farthest away is going to call you and say, 'You don't know what you're doing.' Because they're not on the spot, and they probably feel guilty.

Very few women manage to have it all; certainly not all at once.

Family caregiving has become a predictable crisis. Americans are living longer and longer but dying slower and slower.

You have a new role: family caregiver. It's a role nobody applies for. You don't expect it. You won't be prepared. You probably won't even identify yourself as a caregiver.

The feminist spirit still lives! It shows most boldly among younger women from the millennial generation.

I keep returning to the central question facing over-50 women as we move into our Second Adulthood. What are our goals for this stage in our lives?

In the case of my husband, we found that facing a life-threatening illness prodded us to make a dramatic change in our lives.

I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.

It was my very good fortune to find a mentor, Clay Felker, who started my career at the 'New York Magazine' as a freelance writer when I had to quit my job at the 'Herald Tribune' to stay home with my young daughter.

I'm a liberal, but I think there's so much that the private sector can do and does do.