I was a lesbian for a semester at Wesleyan – it was a graduation requirement. – Ayelet Waldman
As a novelist, I mined my history, my family and my memory, but in a very specific way. Writing fiction, I never made use of experiences immediately as they happened. I needed to let things fester in my memory, mature and transmogrify into something meaningful. – Ayelet Waldman
Look, if you ask a child, Would you rather have a fulfilled mother or a stay-at-home Sylvia Plath, theyll pick Sylvia Plath every time. But I think its really important that children dont feel their parents emotional lives depend on their success. – Ayelet Waldman
There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined youd be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature. – Ayelet Waldman
It is a mistake to imagine that potentially great men are rare. It is the conditions that permit the promise of greatness to be fulfilled that are rare. What is so difficult to achieve is the cultural background that permits potential greatness to be converted into actual greatness. – Fred Hoyle, Of Man and Galaxies