A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen (Quotes)

I read Anna Quindlen's book for the second time during my "life break" in 2026, as I reflected on how I really want to live my life. Below are some of my favorite quotes. The book is really short; I typed it out in about an hour. I highly recommend grabbing a copy to read (and enjoy). It seems to be always available on Libby.

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. That's what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first.

"If you win the rat race, you're still a rat."

When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.

I'm a good mother to three good children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make my marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.

You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.

So I supposed the best piece of advice I could give anyone is pretty simple: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.

Turn off your cell phone. Turn off your regular phone, for that matter. Keep still. Be present.

It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes... It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking.

And I went back to school and I looked around at all the kids I knew who found it kind of a drag and who weren't sure if they could really hack it and who thought life was a bummer. And I knew that I had undergone a sea change. Because I was never again going to be able to see life as anything except a great gift.

C'mon, let's be honest. We have an embarrassment of riches. Life is good. I don't mean in any cosmic way. I never think of my life, or my world, in any big cosmic way. I think of it in all its small component parts: the snowdrops, the daffodils; the feeling of one of my kids sitting close beside me on the couch; the way my husband looks when he reads with the lamp behind him; fettuccine Alfredo, fudge; Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice. Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won't happen. We have to teach ourselves how to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live.

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that this is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

School never ends. The classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office.