“If you’re ever bcc’d, do not go near ‘reply all.’ ‘Bcc’ is ‘blind carbon copy.’ It means you’re a fly on the wall, dude! If you hit reply all, it’s beyond bad etiquette to out the person who gave you the superpower of invisibility. It’s like screaming, ‘I’m a spy!’”
― Faith Salie
“It’s fitting that an insult largely aimed at youth has made children of those who use it. ‘Snowflake’ reminds us how much we need climate change… in politics.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Adverbs, we know, are meant to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. They help us understand things more clearly, more vividly, more… morely.”
― Faith Salie
“The desperate hunger our president has for approbation has led him to such lengths as claiming that God stopped the rain during his Inauguration. In fact, Mother Nature made sure it rained on Trump’s hair the minute he started his speech.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Just as kids need to learn to respect their elders, we are a society that increasingly respects our youth.”
― Faith Salie
“I’m squandering invaluable gray matter by censoring myself.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Did you know you’re supposed to soap and scrub for as long as it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice?”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Mother’s Day is a bittersweet day for many of us. We all have mothers, but some of us have lost them.”
― Faith Salie
“I’m an old mom of a young baby, and every moment matters.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“The boy taught from infancy to be tough is emotionally doomed.”
― Faith Salie
“Sometimes art helps illuminate science.”
― Faith Salie
“No longer is a geek identifiable by a pale complexion, black-rimmed glasses, a bowling shirt that says ‘Nerd World Order.’ No, geeks are everywhere. And they’re cool!”
― Faith Salie
“We all think Al Gore invented email so we could save time and save paper, to save trees. And that includes phone trees.”
― Faith Salie
“Nothing ages you more immediately than being called ‘Mrs.’”
― Faith Salie
“When I was a kid, we called every teacher, every parent – anyone over the age of 20, it seemed – ‘Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so.’”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“I’ve spent my life being responsible, building a career, and waiting to find the right partner with whom to start a family.”
― Faith Salie
“I entered my egg-freezing adventure from a feeling of lack – a lack of fertility, of the right partner, of biological time. But this perceived lack actually produced abundance – of options, time, peace of mind, and microscopic chances of a child.”
― Faith Salie
“I think there’s something very disingenuous about literally all people who say that they don’t care about anyone’s approval.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“I’ll never get complacent. I am my own toughest critic.”
― Faith Salie
“There’s a bit of a reluctance on my part to promote myself as any kind of hero because the things I’ve had to overcome in my life are not the deepest, darkest things.”
― Faith Salie
“Power is not nearly enough for Trump. Power he already possessed, starting with the money his father gave him, which grew into the money he never paid in taxes because he is ‘smart.’ No: Power and ambition pale in comparison to Trumpbeth’s rapacious grab for applause.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“The custom of clasping hands is thought to date back thousands of years, as proof of not holding any weapons.”
― Faith Salie
“If you grasp the bathroom door handle to exit without using a paper towel, you’re right back where you started, with who-knows-whose germs on your hands.”
― Faith Salie
“I’m writing a book, and there’s not even space for a desk in our home. So I spent my hard-earned book money and rented the small apartment downstairs from us.”
― Faith Salie
“’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.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Twerking takes its place in a long line of dance moves deemed immoral, even apocalyptic. The waltz was called sinful because it demanded dangerously close contact between dance partners. In 1914, the tango earned a papal denunciation for being ‘damaging to the soul.’”
― Faith Salie
“As a mother, I don’t want any girl twerking near my kid at a bat mitzvah.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“I’m not actually perishing, but I do feel like I die a little every time someone uses ‘literally’ to mean ‘really.’”
― Faith Salie
“By the time I got to college in the ’90s, virtually every young woman I knew was on the pill. It was like a rite of passage, along with Doc Martens and Take Back the Night rallies.”
― Faith Salie
“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.’”
― Faith Salie
“I’m no scientist, but I’ll dare extrapolate and say that it’s pretty obvious that the more you struggle to recall something, the smarter you are!”
― Faith Salie
“John Travolta is getting old, despite what his hair is trying to tell us.”
― Faith Salie
“Was Hugh Hefner a libertine or a dirty old man? Someone who empowered women or commodified them? The answer is yes!”
― Faith Salie
“This is America; our icons are complicated.”
― Faith Salie
“Wanting to be loved and appreciated connects us all.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“I remember my mom sitting at our kitchen table, paying bills with a small smile. She’d sigh and say, ‘I’m so blessed to be able to pay these.’ She knew it was about what you have.”
― Faith Salie
“I tell my kids all the time that I’m so lucky they chose me to be their mom.”
― Faith Salie
“Manspread, mansplaining, manterrupting – all of it, whether conscious or not, diminishes women’s voices, minds, and bodies.”
― Faith Salie
“If you don’t know what mansplaining is, or manterrupting or manspread, then you’re probably a guy.”
― Faith Salie
“I don’t mean to brag, but my water filter curates tap water, offering moi the finest combination of H, 2, and O available.”
― Faith Salie
“Social media provides a constant platform on which to feature what we deem beautiful, meaningful, and worthy.”
― Faith Salie
“I think the curation consternation is this: Just because you like something or list something, are you really curating?”
― Faith Salie
“One man’s content is another woman’s crap. And the crappy content – let’s call it crontent – will never go away.”
― Faith Salie
“The fact that oversharing exists at all as a noteworthy notion is a relief, because I’m afraid that our younger generations could grow up having no idea what it even means to overshare.”
― Faith Salie
“It’s beyond TMI – oversharing is not just too much information; it’s incessant sharing of non-information – breaking news about your gluten-free diet complete with duck face selfies.”
― Faith Salie
“Not that I’m any good at it, but the beauty of meditation is that it liberates us from our own thoughts.”
― Faith Salie
“To my knowledge, there are, pretty much, two ways to be interesting: One is to actually do interesting things, achieve the remarkable. The other way to be interesting is to be interested, curious about the world and about other people – not relentlessly revelatory about yourself.”
― Faith Salie
“Despite amazing advances in fertility to help older women get pregnant, the complications, increased chances of autism, and chromosomal abnormalities are significant considerations.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“If I could have had my baby sooner, I would have, simply to spend more years with him.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Snowflakery is simply being human, which makes it a pretty flakey insult.”
― Faith Salie
“I’m not proud that, in my time, I’ve tried to harness the power of prayer to fit into a pair of jeans.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“I asked God for a healthy baby. An answer arrived in my daughter.”
― Faith Salie
“I am an approval junkie.”
― Faith Salie
“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.’”
― Faith Salie
“Approval makes the world go round, even if many of us want to transcend our hunger for it.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“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?”
― Faith Salie
“Whenever I told women – friends or acquaintances – that I had to go to divorce court, they’d invariably, without skipping a beat, ask, ‘What are you going to wear?’ It was like instant female solidarity: of course it mattered what I was going to wear.”
― Faith Salie
“Divorce court seemed to inspire in my girlfriends 1940s-era fashion fantasies, not only for me, but for themselves.”
― Faith Salie
“On a meaningful day, everything you wear can have meaning. It becomes what I wore That Day, whether that day is a beginning or an end.”
― Faith Salie
“Am I an elitist because I like wine?”
― Faith Salie
“I have no problem being full-term pregnant and do not understand women who say, ‘I can’t wait to get this baby out of me!’”
― Faith Salie
“I know how much sleep I need, how much time on the elliptical I need, and how much chocolate that buys me.”
― Faith Salie
“Whether you plan to labor with an epidural or the Pitocin Fairy pins you down or you end up having an emergency C-section, there are still choices you can make throughout your entire birth experience that allow you to feel some control over what is probably the most dramatic day of your life.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Well-done eyelash extensions make you look beautiful and doe-eyed without a lick of makeup.”
― Faith Salie
“If you want to become a mother, you can. I promise. It may not happen the way you think, but it’s possible. It just takes a combination of a little planning and a lot of living your life.”
― Faith Salie
“My first husband and I never came close to having kids.”
― Faith Salie
“I spent my late twenties and all of my thirties figuring out what I was supposed to be doing and where my home was.”
― Faith Salie
“Most of my best friends had children in their early 40s.”
― Faith Salie
“Harassment doesn’t just happen to ‘social observers’ and ‘comedians’ – women who express themselves publicly are reliably verbally attacked online and in person, not for their substance but for their form.”
― Faith Salie
“Donald Trump, who surely has lots of high-stakes issues on which to focus, is consumed with the appearance of women.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“Wildfires can leave the land with burn scars that last for years.”
― Faith Salie
“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?”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“The t-shirts that declare ‘Girls Rule the World’ offer an empirical falsehood, but at least the aspiration is there.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
“I don’t think, in my entire 18 years as a student, I ever used an exclamation point in an academic paper.”
― Faith Salie
“I admit I feel funny when I use the word ‘whom’ as I’m talking to my diapered children, but I persist.”
― Faith Salie
“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.”
― Faith Salie
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