Gail Sheehy
Gail Sheehy
Gail Sheehyis an American author, journalist, and lecturer. She is the author of seventeen books, including Passages, named by the Library of Congress one of the ten most influential books of our times. Sheehy has written biographies and character studies of major twentieth-century leaders, including Hillary Clinton, both presidents Bush, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Her latest book, Daring: My Passages,is a memoir...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth27 November 1937
CountryUnited States of America
In the case of my husband, we found that facing a life-threatening illness prodded us to make a dramatic change in our lives.
Married at 23, a mother at 24, and blindsided by divorce at 28, I found myself struggling, like many young women I meet today, to strike a balance between my personal life and my career.
I found the happiest woman in America is between 50 and 55, is happily married, has made significant progress in her career, and lives in a community where she can easily exercise outside. But the most important single thing was she had her last child before she was 35.
I found that female pathfinders generally integrate characteristics commonly associated with being women - like the capacity to be intimate - with 'male' ones like ambition and courage.
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living.
Like everyone else in the first weeks after the tragedy of 9/11, I was looking frantically for some way to help.
There is nothing in the world as great as finding your sexual excitement in your fifties.
There certainly are middle-aged children who have an oh-my-God, Mom's-gone-wild reaction if Mom starts to date. But what they should recognize is that if Mom has a boyfriend, she won't be nagging them about how they have to come to her for Christmas.
It seems like, to me, somewhere between 30 and 35 is a really, really good time to turn your eggs into babies.
I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.
I'm a liberal, but I think there's so much that the private sector can do and does do.
Character is what was yesterday and will be tomorrow.
Back in 1968, when I was 30, my entire life blew up. I had a life plan, and it collapsed for no rational reason.
I actually interviewed other people about myself, and that alerted me to the fact that I had to really investigate my memories.