The life you have led doesn't need to be the only life you have.
Anna QuindlenRead
Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our lives are greatly influenced by chance events and decisions.
This quote reflects on the idea that our life paths are largely shaped by seemingly minor choices and chance occurrences. Anna Quindlen emphasizes that what might seem like insignificant whims can lead to significant life changes, highlighting the unpredictable nature of our existence and the importance of recognizing how much of our lives are built on happenstance rather than strict plans or designs.
Themes
HappenstanceChanceLife ChoicesDecisionsUnpredictability
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about taking risks in life, one could reference how small decisions can lead to great opportunities, using this quote.
More from Anna Quindlen
All quotes →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.
Anna QuindlenRead
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
Similar quotes
Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It's the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.
Terence MckennaRead
I believe that used responsibly and in a mature way, the entheogens mediate access to the numinous dimensions of existence, have a great healing and transformative potential, and represent a very important tool for spiritual development.
Stanislav GrofRead
God is far more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved.
J. C. RyleRead
The worst thing you want is a willy-nilly judge who is swayed by the political whims of the era or the time. What you want is a judge who is thinking about what he or she is doing and is thinking about it in a principled way.
Sonia SotomayorRead
Conscience is the most sacred of all property.
James MadisonRead
I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out.
Maya AngelouRead