Candace Bushnell Quotes

There are a lot of women writers who never get married and don't have kids. I am married, but I didn't marry until I was 43. I knew when I was young that if I had to make a choice between being married and being a writer, I would have chosen to be a writer. I think it's a career where you have to put the career first. I don't have kids but - and luckily everyone isn't like this - I think if you have that passion, in a way, your career is your child.

A glittering disco ball spins from the ceiling, but the music is something I've never heard, discordant and haunting and insistent, the kind of music that demands you dance.

Don't you think it's weird when someone has photographs of themselves all over the place? It's like they're trying to prove they exist.

You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.

Being a writer
is all about having something to say. And it'd better be interesting. If you don't have anything
interesting to say, don't become a writer. Become something useful. Like a doctor.

I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should, because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

The reality about being economically dependent on someone else usually doesn't work out for women in the end. It's about being an adult and being responsible for your life. Most women have to work, so let's just get on with it.

I always thought that there was a really good chance that I wasn't going to get married.

Maybe he's falling in love with the idea of falling in love with me. Maybe he wants to be in love with someone and I've ended up in the right place at the right time.

Why shouldn't I? I demand silently. Why shouldn't I become a famous writer? Like Norman Mailer. Or Philip Roth. And F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemmingway and all those other men. Why can't I be like them? I mean, what is the point of becoming a writer if no one reads what you've written?
Damn Viktor Greene and The New School. Why do I have to keep proving myself all of the time? Why can't I be like L'il, with everyone praising and encouraging me? Or Rainbow, with her sense of entitlement. I bet Viktor Greene never asked Rainbow why she wanted to be a writer.
Or what if-I wince-Viktor Greene is right? I'm not a writer after all.

There's no such thing as writer's block," she proclaimed. "If you can't write it's because you don't have anything to say. Or you're avoiding something.

Ever since I can remember I was telling stories and had a huge interest in other people and what made them tick.

Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.

I don't go to parties to meet men. I go to parties to stand in a corner and watch people.

I stare up the stars, intensely aware of his body a few inches from mine. If this isn't romance, I don't know what is.

She didn't want to have anything to do with the party. She was tired of feeling like she didn't fit in, but she didn't want to go home, either, because she was a tired of being lonely and she was a little drunk.

I've had boyfriends before, and frankly, each one was a disappointment.
There was nothing horribly wrong with these boys. It was my fault. I'm kind of a snob when it comes to guys.
So far, the biggest problem with the boys I've dated is that they weren't too smart. And eventually I ended up hating myself for being with them. It scared me, trying to pretend I was something I wasn't. I could see how easily it could be done, and it made me realize that was what most of the other girls were doing as well - pretending. If you were a girl, you could start pretending in high school and go on pretending your whole life, until, I suppose, you imploded and had a nervous breakdown, which is something that's happened to a few of the mothers around here. All of a sudden, one day something snaps and they don't get out of bed for three years.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to
pretend it didn't happen

You need characters who want things. They want love, they want recognition, they want happiness.

His mother had become impossible, as, he supposed, all elderly people were when they refused to accept that their lives had to change.

Women with money and women in power are two uncomfortable ideas in our society.

My anger is like some rudimentary, single-celled beast, an exploding virus of fury that paralyses rational thought and blinds me to everything except one single goal ...

It was important to remember who you were and where you came from, no matter how successful you became.

Don't be silly, my dear. Threats are only meaningful if you have the power to execute them. And you, my dear, do not.

Love is spiritual. It's about self-sacrifice and commitment. And discipline. You cannot have true love without discipline and respect. When you lose the respect of your spouse, you've lost everything.

I actually don't shop very much. I have a tendency to rotate a few pairs of ripped jeans and an old cashmere sweater.

I didn't want it to be this way."
"Yes, you did," she said, "because it is."
"I just want to be with someone normal," he said. "I just want to have a normal life."
"Excuse me," she said.
"You're a little crazy," he said. "You're too old to act the way you do. You've got to grow up. You've got to take care of yourdelf. I'm afraid for you. You can't think that people are going to take care of you all the time.

Better alone than badly accompanied.

When you're alone, it's easier," she said a little wistfully. "You can do what you want. You don't have to go home.

Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder
no matter how old you became and how much you'd seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.

Have I become the girl who waits by the phone, hoping it will ring, who asks a friend to dial her number to make sure the phone is working?

The '90s are really the 'Sex and the City' woman, and I think, right now, the new contemporary woman is the 'Lipstick Jungle' woman.

I'm really enjoying being single. I'm not even looking to meet anybody, which is so freeing.

Yow. Guys can be so insecure.

Retribution is tricky ... The insult isn't usually worth the risk of punishment. And eventually one learns that karma has a surprising way of taking care of these situations. All you have to do is sit back and watch.

There are worse things than being thirty-five, single, and female in New York. Like: Being twenty-five, singled, and female in New York. It's a rite of passage few women would want to repeat. It's about sleeping with the wrong men, wearing the wrong clothes, having the wrong roommate, saying the wrong thing, being ignored, getting fired, not being taken seriously, and generally being treated like shit. But it's necessary.

It's a job. When I'm writing I'm going to do it five to six days a week and I'm going to work for four to six hours a day. There's no magic writing fairy. It's just hard work.

I was incredibly determined - I wrote short stories, I wrote the beginnings of novels. I wrote a little children's book and sent it to the editor-in-chief of the children's division of Simon and Schuster and she asked me to write a little children's book for a series she was doing.

- I don't want to be a writer so I can write about my life. I want to be a writer to escape from it.
+ Then you shouldn't be a writer.

It's tempting to wish for the perfect boss, the perfect parent, or the perfect outfit. But maybe the best any of us can do is not to quit, play the hand we've been dealt, and accessorize what we've got.

I feel sick.
It's one thing to write for the school newspaper. But New York is on a whole different level. It's a mountain, with a few successful people like Bernard at the top, and a mad of dreamers and strivers like me at the bottom.
And then there are people like Viktor, who aren't afraid to tell you that you've never going to reach that peak.

Why do I keep evading my work? Is it because I'm afraid of being confronted by my lack of abilities?

What?" She gasps. "Who did you do it with? You can't go out there and pick up some random stranger. Oh no, Carrie. You didn't. You didn't pick up some guy at a bar.

Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them.
-Carrie Bradshaw

She could tell by Philip's attitude that his writing wasn't going well again. He was joyous when it was and miserable when it wasn't.

Always look like you know where you're going, even when you don't

Maybe all men are a drug. Sometimes they bring you down and sometimes, like now, they get you so high.

Lots of famous people are late bloomers. My father says it's an advantage to be a late bloomer. Because when good things start happening, you're ready for it.

We'll then," Enjd said. "What's the problem?"
"This," Mindy said. She opened her hand and held up a tiny green plastic toy solider thrusting a bayonet.
"I don't understand," Enid said.
"This morning, when I opened my door to get the newspaper, I found a whole troop of them arranged on the mat."
"And you think Paul Rice did it," Enid said skeptically.
"I don't think he did it. I know he did it," Mindy said. "He told me if I didn't approve his air conditioners, it was war ...

Is this better or worse than being married and living in the suburbs? Better or worse? Who can tell?

You can get used to anything, I guess, if you've been there enough.

I think that one of the things that has changed the perception is that there are so many more single people. In New York City, it's 47 percent. When you have that many people who are single, they have a bigger voice and they're more willing to speak and say, 'We're not miserable, we're not sitting at home waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right, we're having a good time.' And I think single people have better friendships.

E said, he didn't know what to do. He couldn't move forward. He thought, they should move on. He started crying. Not for himdelf, for her. He'd rescued her from her lousy life, and now he was throwing her back. He felt like a shit for doing it, for things having to be that way, for not being able to gove her what she wanted. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her. The only part that wasn't in the manual, was her response: She started to laugh. "Oh, give me a break," she said.

I'm the kind of person who would have liked to have lived at the Plaza. I love crystal chandeliers and gold leaf, velvets and mirrors, Oriental rugs and marble.

Like it or not, in the end, it's one's body. It's literally what carries you through life. There's a reason for the saying, 'If you have your health, you have everything,' and it's true. Old age, disease - these are the great equalizers.

If a man doesn't ask you to marry him
or at least live with him
after two years, he never will. It means he's only interested in having a good time.

Handbags are not important anymore," Connie admonished her. "It said so in Vogue. Right now it's all about having something no one else possesses. It's about the one of a kind. The unique.

I know I have to do the right thing. And the sooner you do the right thing, the better. You get it over with, and you don't have to worry about it anymore. But who does that in real life? Instead, you procrastinate and think about it and put it off and think about it some more until that one little pebble grows into a giant block inside your head.

Thinking you don't have unhealthy patterns is an unhealthy pattern in itself. And everyone has something unhealthy from their childhood. If you don't deal with it, it can ruin your life.

He leans over and kisses me. And suddenly, my life splits in two: before and after.

She had very little money, but she wasn't afraid-there was only one place to go, and that was up.

Guys are like dogs: they never notice if you've changed your hair, but they can sense when there's another guy sniffing around their territory

The city was different back then
poor and crumbling
kept alive only by the gritty determination and steely cynicism of its occupants. But underneath the dirt was the apple-cheeked optimism of possibility, and while she worked, the whole city seemed to throb along with her.

I don't consider my work a job. I consider it a career. And you
don't quit a career.

Babies! That's all it's about. Who ever knew the world would be all about babies?" Samantha shouts.
"Every time I see a baby, I swear, I want to throw up," Miranda says.
"I did throw up once." I nod eagerly. "I saw a filthy bib, and that was it."
"Why don't these people just get cats and a litter box?" Samantha asks.

It was ironic, but when you scratched the surface, most successful men were working for one thing only
to retire
and the sooner the better. Whereas women were the complete opposite. She had never heard a woman say she was working so she could retire to a desert island or to live on a boat. It was probably, she thought, because most women didn't think they deserved to do nothing.

Zizi was young and often confused about how to live his life, and when he made a choice he clung to it with fierce resolve, as if to beat his uncertainty into submission.

I could live here forever. Maybe even become real New Yorker someday.

Funny always makes the bad things go away.

You don't want to peak in high school. If you do, the rest of your life is a disaster.

I wouldn't be in shallow relationships, so I do nothing. I have no sex and no romance. Who needs it.? Who needs all these potential problems like disease and pregnancy.? I have no problems. No fear of disease, psychopaths, or stalkers. Why not just be with your friends and have real conversations and a good time.?

I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.

Just because something doesn't last forever, it doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful while it did last. It doesn't mean it wasn't important.

Grace was one of those types who never changed but only aged and had no apparent expectations or ambitions other than the wish that her life should remain the same.

The only way to look at men is like they're electrons. They have all these charges sticking out, and they're always looking for a hole where they can put those charges.

Everything I need is in my head, and no one can take that away.

Why do magazines do this to women?" Miranda complains now, glaring at Vogue. "It's all about creating insecurity. Trying to make women feel like they're not good enough. And when women don't feel like they're good enough, guess what?"
"What?" I ask, picking up the grocery bag.
"Men win. That's how they keep us down," she concludes.
"Except the problem with women's magazines is that they're written by women," I point out.
"That only shows you how deep this thing goes. Men have made women coconspirators in their own oppression. I mean, if you spend all your time worrying about leg hair, how can you possibly have time to take over the world?

There's so many things that mattered so much in my 20s and 30s that don't matter now.

She was obsessed with clothes and status, how she never gave a thought to being responsible for her own actions, or even what she might do for anyone else-making her the ultimate example of all that was wrong and misguided about young women today.

I wish I was one of those persnickety types who buys guidebooks and studies them, but I don't have the inclination or time. I'm more of a 'get on the plane, arrive at the destination and see what happens' kind of traveler.

That was the wonderful thing about New York: Years of bad blood could be wiped out with a single gesture of friendliness.

Have I ever been in love? Really in love? And why is it that with each new guy I think I'm more in love with him than the last?

What if I'm a princess on another planet? And no one on this planet knows it?

Rule number three: Best friends always think you deserve the best guy even if the best guy barely knows you exist.

After all, it's woman, who decide, if a man is desirable or undesirable.

At first, being with Sebastian was like being in the middle of the best dream I'd ever had - but now it mostly feels exhausting. I'm up one minute and down the next; questioning what I say and do. Even questioning my sanity.

I can't wait to get out of the house. I can't wait to get out of here. I've been telling myself this all week. The 'getting out of here' part is unspecified, though. Maybe I simply want to get away from life

As long as one refuses to know one's place, there's no telling what one can do in the world.

My share. I hate owing anyone anything. Don't you?

Sex and the City was about looking for Mr Big and trying to find him.

I can safely conclude that we are single because we want to be.

If everyone in New York took sides over these petty, insignificant arguments, no one would have any friends at all.

No one is too busy to pick up the phone, to make a one-minute phone call. No matter how busy they say they are.

My decorating and renovation skills are nil - indeed, I once used a shower curtain from Pottery Barn as 'window dressing.'

If I'm with a man, is that going to prevent me from achieving my goal? What sacrifices will I have to make in terms of being myself, if I'm with a man? Something that young women find out really quickly is that when you start dating, all of a sudden you're supposed to have a role. You're not allowed to just be yourself.

And then he was there, staring at me from behind the screen door. I'd like to say he no longer affected me, that seeing him was a disappointment. But it wasn't true. I felt as strongly about him as I had on that first day I'd seen him in calculus class.

Parker was also proving my theory. For instance, when Parker and Roger first started seeing each other, Parker got sick. Roger went to his house to cook him dinner and take care of him. That would never happen with a straight guy. If a straight guy got sick and he'd just started dating a woman and she wanted to take care of him,

If I didn't define who I was and what I wanted, then someone else would.

He's such an asshole you'd never believe he could be religious, but he is.

Man might have identified fire, but women identified the way to enjoy with it.