Faith Salie Quotes

Boys have always known they could do anything; all they had to do was look around at their presidents, religious leaders, professional athletes, at the statues that stand erect in big cities and small. Girls have always known they were allowed to feel anything – except anger.

It was my husband who had to open all the baby shower gifts which were haunting me in their candy-colored gift wrap – thank you notes demanding to be written.

Just as kids need to learn to respect their elders, we are a society that increasingly respects our youth.

Approval ratings matter for politicians, largely for good reason. A leader with plummeting approval ratings ought to take note of the needs and hopes of his people.

Mothers of all ages delight in their children, but I don’t know that, if I were younger, I would feel as acutely, profoundly, preciously grateful for every smile, squeal, and – yes – diaper blowout.

Here’s a simple guideline: if five names or fewer are cc’d, just go nuts and hit ‘reply all.’ But if more than five folks appear in the cc line, pause. Give it a thought. Some people are promiscuous and cc dozens of people who don’t need to know each other’s business.

Making fun of people’s looks is something that children do – mean children – and, in fact, linguists have determined that Trump actually speaks like a 3rd grader.

This is America; our icons are complicated.

My husband is a graduate of two Ivy League universities – with a degree in Classics! – and he sounds like a David Mamet character when I hear him on a business call.

I’m squandering invaluable gray matter by censoring myself.

It’s one thing to decry and defy political correctness in the name of efficiently achieving clarity or revealing an honest truth. But it’s quite another thing entirely to support name-calling and nastiness.

My first husband and I never came close to having kids.

I think the curation consternation is this: Just because you like something or list something, are you really curating?

I’ll never get complacent. I am my own toughest critic.

I’m an old mom of a young baby, and every moment matters.

Women are blessed with lots and lots of extra ways to win or lose validation. If you’re a woman, you’ll be judged on your beauty and your wit and how often you smile. You’ll be judged on how much hair you have in some places and not in others.

Shaking hands is a pretty good way to get yourself sick, not necessarily with Ebola, but with a million other germs that can cause colds and flu.

Hours after I gave birth to my first child, my husband cradled all five pounds of our boy and said, gently, ‘Hi, Sweetpea.’ Not ‘Buddy‘ or ‘Little Man.’ Sweetpea. The word filled me with unanticipated comfort.

I asked God for a healthy baby. An answer arrived in my daughter.

Any responsible essayist or memoir writer who’s writing about herself is not just saying, ‘Here’s what happened,’ and opening up her diary. There needs to be consideration of other people’s feelings.

Snowflakery is simply being human, which makes it a pretty flakey insult.

Famous people I’ve interviewed – powerful people, brilliant people, people whom you look at and think, ‘Seriously, do you not have pores?’ – have turned to me after interviews and asked, ‘Was I okay? I hope I was okay.’

Mother’s Day is a bittersweet day for many of us. We all have mothers, but some of us have lost them.

For weeks I ran through a mental inventory of my closet. Did I want to wear something new – to christen it and forever make it The Divorce Dress?

Women all over this great land are creating spaces just for themselves, most often out of sheds in their backyards. They’re fantasy cottages, bespoke bungalows, ‘mama maisons,’ if you will, for mothers and wives who need a sanctuary – a haven where they can do anything, or nothing.

Did you know you’re supposed to soap and scrub for as long as it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday‘ twice?

Most of my best friends had children in their early 40s.

‘Man cave‘ seems retrograde, but ‘she shed’ seems progressive. Or maybe it’s just a place for me to eat embarrassing amounts of chocolate in private.

Well-done eyelash extensions make you look beautiful and doe-eyed without a lick of makeup.

I’ve always wanted, notionally, to be a mother. And I was certain I would be, because everyone I know, gay or straight, married or single, rich or not so much, who truly wants to have a child figures out a way, some way, to have one – whether through adoption, fostering, surrogacy, fertility, accident, or persistence.

People who champion Trump say they don’t want politics-as-usual. But ‘politic’ is also an adjective. It means ‘tactful and diplomatic.’ It’s necessary for an elected official to be politic.

If I could have had my baby sooner, I would have, simply to spend more years with him.

One man’s content is another woman‘s crap. And the crappy content – let’s call it crontent – will never go away.

The option to freeze one’s eggs is just about the most empowering choice a single woman who knows she wants to be a mother can make.

I’ve spent my life being responsible, building a career, and waiting to find the right partner with whom to start a family.

Having grown up Catholic, my prayers were scripted – memorized and deployed in church and before bed. As a young adult, I veered off script and talked to God more plainly. And by ‘talked to,’ I mean that I basically asked for things to turn out the way I wanted them to.

Sometimes art helps illuminate science.

John Travolta is getting old, despite what his hair is trying to tell us.

Scientists have discovered that, as we age, our brains act like computers with fuller and fuller hard drives. So when we’re trying to recall a fact or a word or a name, it takes us longer, because – to put it scientifically – our brains hold a lot of ‘stuff.’

Are we a people who put politics over integrity? Or are we a country of voters and leaders, men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, colleagues, humans who care about treating each other with basic dignity?

Contrary to the negative stereotype that folks who swear have poor vocabularies, a fluency in taboo language correlates with overall verbal fluency. The more words you know, the more you know… and the more colorfully you can express yourself, with nuance, metaphor, and emotion.

I once accidentally ‘replied all’ and sent an email complaining about my then-boyfriend to a bunch of strangers. It was meant for my friend who was a bride, but I ended up addressing her entire wedding party. Her marriage lasted; my relationship didn’t.

I’m not actually perishing, but I do feel like I die a little every time someone uses ‘literally‘ to mean ‘really.’

As a mother, I don’t want any girl twerking near my kid at a bat mitzvah.

The t-shirts that declare ‘Girls Rule the World‘ offer an empirical falsehood, but at least the aspiration is there.

Real love is more than a one-time, seemingly iron-clad pledge that we will never be apart. If you’re over 20, you’ve probably figured out that meaningful love isn’t constricting; it doesn’t chain you to one place or to each other.

I know how much sleep I need, how much time on the elliptical I need, and how much chocolate that buys me.

I’m a snowflake. And so are you. Your children are snowflakes. And so are mine. And those who protest the loudest about not being snowflakes? I can see your six-fold ice crystals from here! Because every person, empirically, is unique.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and in the foxhole of my divorce, I found solace in walking to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and lighting candles.

In case you don’t watch much TV or spend time with anyone under 40, ‘Really?’ is pop culture‘s pithiest way to deliver a withering put-down.

Wanting to be loved and appreciated connects us all.

I’m not proud that, in my time, I’ve tried to harness the power of prayer to fit into a pair of jeans.

A leader who cobbles together his self-esteem by attempting to silence or libel his critics and by amplifying his echo chamber is a dangerous one indeed.

Despite amazing advances in fertility to help older women get pregnant, the complications, increased chances of autism, and chromosomal abnormalities are significant considerations.

Getting a pedicure seems to be a standard pre-birth ritual, presumably because it is relaxing and makes you feel pretty even though your little piggies are going to be covered in those awesome no-skid hospital socks which I kept on for three days.