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You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.
Anna Quindlen
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes the personal responsibility and ownership we have over our own lives and experiences.

Anna Quindlen's quote reflects the profound truth that each individual is uniquely responsible for their own existence and the way they live it. It highlights that our lives encompass all aspects, including emotional, financial, and spiritual dimensions, suggesting that true fulfillment comes from recognizing and embracing this responsibility fully.

Themes

OwnershipResponsibilityLifeHeartSoulMind

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about personal growth.

More from Anna Quindlen

The life you have led doesn't need to be the only life you have.
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The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you'd never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.
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I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.
Anna QuindlenRead
With reference to the younger generation..."If the experience of their exhausted, insomniac, dispirited elders makes them decide they'd prefer not to go straight from the classroom to the cubicle to the coffin, it doesn't mean they're lazy. It means they're sane."
Anna QuindlenRead
Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.
Anna QuindlenRead
I conveniently forgot to remember that people only have two hands, or, as another parent once said of having a third child, it's time for a zone defense instead of man-to-man.
Anna QuindlenRead

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