Colleen Taylor

I've been listening to a fair amount of NPR lately. When driving (which I've been doing to shuttle to interviews for work and whatnot) it's just generally my best option for entertainment. I feel guilty about all the car use when San Francisco has decent public transit, but that's for another post.

Anyway! Earlier this week while driving along, I found myself absorbed in a Terry Gross interview. She was talking with an interesting-sounding woman with some very smart opinions. Only at the very end of it I found out that she was talking with *the* Anna Quindlen, who is apparently promoting a new book. 

Below I've pasted the transcript of one part of the interview that really enchanted me. I'm still into my ambitious 20's stage, but I think the state of mind Ms. Quindlen describes will come later on in life is something to really, really look forward to:

GROSS: You write in your book: I wouldn't be 25 again or even 40. Why not?

QUINDLEN: Oh, I think I was still so unsure of myself, particularly at 25. I mean, you know, I talked a good game but there was still that sense of looking over my shoulder all the time in terms of what people expected of me, what I expected of myself, that thump, thump of ambition that's kind of free floating when you're young.

I just feel like with every passing year I've sort of become more myself. I've sort of circled back to that little five year old girl, you know, who was kind of full of herself and didn't take a whole lot of guff and did what she wanted to do and was comfortable in her own skin.

 

...At a certain point I realized that no one is going to be here. No one is going to spoon-feed you anymore. No one is going to teach you anything. You've got to grab it."