You can figure out who you were by which movies you loved when.
MARY SCHMICH 'The Hunger Games' isn't for everybody. But neither is 'Anna Karenina.'
MARY SCHMICH For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation.
MARY SCHMICH TV happens. And once it's happened, it's gone. When it's gone, you move on, no tears, no...
MARY SCHMICH The first gay person I ever met was surely not the first gay person I ever met.
MARY SCHMICH The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them.
MARY SCHMICH You can map your life through your favorite movies, and no two people's maps will be the same.
MARY SCHMICH Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with those who are reckless w...
MARY SCHMICH In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp n...
MARY SCHMICH Like many women my age, I am 28 years old.
MARY SCHMICH Every day each of us wakes up, reaches into drawers and closets, pulls out a costume for the day and...
MARY SCHMICH On an average day, we allow ourselves the fiction that we own a piece of our workplace. That's p...
MARY SCHMICH I couldn't have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother's death. The renew...
MARY SCHMICH Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you'll have a trust fund. Maybe you'll ha...
MARY SCHMICH Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. The older you get, ...
MARY SCHMICH Opening day. All you have to do is say the words and you feel the shutters thrown wide, the room air...
MARY SCHMICH Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with those who are reckless with yours.
MARY SCHMICH Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.
MARY SCHMICH Reading is a discount to everywhere.
MARY SCHMICH Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of...
MARY SCHMICH Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.
MARY SCHMICH One thing you might want to learn before you attend the world's largest ukulele lesson is how to...
MARY SCHMICH A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widel...
MARY SCHMICH Linda Tripp has shown that a true friend is an archivist, a biographer.
MARY SCHMICH Barbie is just a doll.
MARY SCHMICH Chicago is constantly auditioning for the world, determined that one day, on the streets of Barcelon...
MARY SCHMICH The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within ...
MARY SCHMICH Here's a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can't anticipate...
MARY SCHMICH Do not read beauty magazines. They only make you feel ugly.
MARY SCHMICH Consider the lowly word if. If can launch any accusation into the public arena in the guise of fact....
MARY SCHMICH If this escapade has taught me anything, it's that you never know what's in the future.
MARY SCHMICH If this escapade has taught me anything, it's that you never know what's in the future,
MARY SCHMICH TV happens. And once it's happened, it's gone. When it's gone, you move on, no tears, no tantrums, n...
MARY SCHMICH All this situation does is remind people of the incredible power and potency of the Internet,
MARY SCHMICH Over the course of that morning, I started hearing from a lot of Tribune readers, both on the phone ...
MARY SCHMICH That's the central mystery of this whole situation, ... Digital Jam.
MARY SCHMICH Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you'll have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy...
MARY SCHMICH Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and ...
MARY SCHMICH The soul-sucking activity of TV-watching feels better when it is done with other souls.
MARY SCHMICH You can map your life through your favorite movies, and no two people's maps will be the same.
MARY SCHMICH Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.
MARY SCHMICH In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how m...
MARY SCHMICH Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you...
MARY SCHMICH Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are h...
MARY SCHMICH Advice is a form of Nostalgia
MARY SCHMICH Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostal...
MARY SCHMICH Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, bu...
MARY SCHMICH Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer y...
MARY SCHMICH Cooking and baking is both physical and mental therapy.
MARY BERRY My inner critic who had begun piping up about how hopeless I was and how I didn't know to write.
MARY GARDEN I decided to write about the myths of divorce.
MARY GARDEN I deleted all the games from my computer. I spent days trawling the Internet. I started slowly.
MARY GARDEN If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don'...
MARY GARDEN Reading Stephen King's book, On Writing, was like being cornered and forced to have a long, draw...
MARY GARDEN My biggest excuse to others and myself was that I had writer's block, as if it was some kind of ...
MARY GARDEN In the back of my mind was the constant hankering, almost yearning, to write but something always st...
MARY GARDEN Krishna children were taught that in the spiritual world there were no parents, only souls and hence...
MARY GARDEN I was a new devotee of Eastern mysticism and even though I did not join that particular group, I cou...
MARY GARDEN For a long period in my life - it lasted about 10 years - I had writer's block.
MARY GARDEN In the early 1930s, flying from England to Australia was the longest flight in the world. It was con...
MARY GARDEN A wonderful emotion to get things moving when one is stuck is anger. It was anger more than anything...
MARY GARDEN My block was due to two overlapping factors: laziness and lack of discipline.
MARY GARDEN It was not uncommon for the children to be told they were being treated this way because it was thei...
MARY GARDEN Research on child abuse suggests that religious beliefs can foster, encourage, and justify the abuse...
MARY GARDEN Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
MARY SHELLEY If God had not intended that Women shou'd use their Reason, He wou'd not have given them any...
MARY ASTELL I long for my garden to be complete. Working in it is one of my joys, but it will never be finished ...
MARY QUANT Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.
MARY MARTIN When people suffer, their relationships usually suffer as well. Period. And we all suffer because, a...
MARY KARR Nothing you become will disappoint me; I have no preconception that I'd like to see you be or do. I ...
MARY HASKELL There are no absolutes in this world, and there will always be mistakes that are made within brokera...
MARY SCHAPIRO When I opened my first shop, city gents were still carrying tightly furled umbrellas and wearing bow...
MARY QUANT I have a theory of living on the boundary: on the boundary of patriarchy and the boundary of differe...
MARY DALY Having children is the greatest thing that can happen to you as a husband and wife. They are infuria...
MARY BERRY I wasn't the brightest button in the class at school, but I enjoyed cooking and baking. I wasn&#...
MARY BERRY I usually wear only a bit of pink lippy, but for TV, they add a few extra lashes to brighten my eyes...
MARY BERRY To many women marriage is only this. It is merely a physical change impinging on their ordinary natu...
MARY WEBB In my end is my beginning.
MARY STUART Dad thought something very fishy was going on when, at 22, I was offered a job for £1,000 a ye...
MARY BERRY Campaigning in Wyoming is politics at its most retail level. It's done one voter at a time.
MARY CHENEY One of our most promising technologies is Super Cruise, which is the working name for an innovative ...
MARY BARRA I was always nervous before a television show, and I still am now. But 'The Great British Bake O...
MARY BERRY When you look at the truck market in North America, you have to understand the customer, and that...
MARY BARRA If you are buying a larger turkey than usual, make sure it will fit in the oven.
MARY BERRY I mainly cook British food with a few things I've had on my holidays. I went to the Canary Islan...
MARY BERRY Never tell. Not if you love your wife... In fact, if your old lady walks in on you, deny it. Yeah. J...
MARY BUCKLEY The test of man is how well he is able to feel about what he thinks. The test of a woman is how we...
MARY MCDOWELL Liberty, as it is concieved by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift ...
MARY MCCARTY Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift ...
MARY MCCARTHY Young writers often mistakenly choose a certain vein or style based on who they want to be, unconsci...
MARY KARR But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhi...
MARY SHELLEY The best way of forgetting how you think you feel is to concentrate on what you know you know.
MARY STEWART Mormons... are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are...
MARY DOUGLAS When I walk down the boardwalk, people stop me and say, 'Oh, your house is the one that glows.&#...
MARY MATALIN In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if e...
MARY MCCARTHY There wasn't one particular thing that made us say we needed to have this drill, it's more of a gene...
MARY AUSTIN When a woman ceases to alter the fashion of her hair, you guess that she has passed the crisis of he...
MARY AUSTIN Genius . . . arises in the natural, aboriginal concern for the conscious unity of all phenomena.
MARY AUSTIN We have 60 hills of rhubarb now. When we bought the farm in 1946 we found it coming up in the pastur...
MARY AUSTIN If you are not at your ideal body weight and are not active, over time, you have a risk of diabetes.
MARY AUSTIN Our emergency preparedness is always an ongoing priority. We're constantly working on it at the Clin...
MARY AUSTIN The Stoughton tornado was probably a motivator as well, because that could just as easily have been ...
MARY AUSTIN What women have to stand on squarely is not their ability to see the world in the way men see it, bu...
MARY AUSTIN People would be surprised to know how much I learned about prayer from playing poker
MARY AUSTIN These findings are very reflective of what we see around the world. The rise in weight and obesity i...
MARY AUSTIN The Internet is a boon for hypochondriacs like me.
MARY ROACH People who didn't live pre-Internet can't grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was....
MARY KARR To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it again...
MARY OLIVER My mother always read to me as a child. I really believe that bonding time between a parent and chil...
MARY ENGELBREIT A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.
MARY SHELLEY The mills of God work like lightning compared with the law.
MARY STEWART Having money is rather like being a blond. It is more fun but not vital.
MARY QUANT To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, pol...
MARY MCCARTHY Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wr...
MARY HEMINGWAY But the things is, you see, that two people can never actually become one no matter how close they a...
MARY BALOGH ...friendship...is essential to intellectuals. You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the ag...
MARY MCCARTHY Women's courage is rather different from men's. The fact that women have to bring up childre...
MARY WESLEY The biggest message I have for young women is, Don't start cutting off branches of your career t...
MARY BARRA World peace starts with the Creator- Jesus!!
MARY KATE We all live in suspense from day to day; in other words, you are the hero of your own story.
MARY MCCARTHY A person without a memory is either a child or an amnesiac. A country without a memory is neither a ...
MARY ASTOR A painter paints, a musician plays, a writer writes - but a movie actor waits.
MARY ASTOR It's not good to make sentimental journeys. You see the differences instead of the sameness.
MARY ASTOR The man who goes fishing gets something more than the fish he catches.
MARY ASTOR To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certain...
MARY STUART Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at ...
MARY CATHERWOOD It's like a candy store for an illustrator, I connected with Harry pretty quickly and loved the ...
MARY GRANDPRE to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is morta...
MARY OLIVER You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles thro...
MARY OLIVER The Uses Of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved on...
MARY OLIVER Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, w...
MARY OLIVER Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
MARY OLIVER Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
MARY OLIVER Every spring
I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing throug...
MARY OLIVER [I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neith...
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT It was the challenge of life too, was it not? People could never be fully understood. They were ever...
MARY BALOGH My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering t...
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT All night my heart makes its way
however it can over the rough ground
of uncertainties, bu...
MARY OLIVER To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
MARY OLIVER There are few men more superstitious than soldiers. They are, after all, the men who live closest to...
MARY STEWART The test of man is how well he is able to feel about what he thinks. The test of a woman is how well...
MARY MCDOWELL Husbands are awkward things to deal with; even keeping them in hot water will not make them tender.
MARY BUCKLEY If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call f...
MARY PICKFORD I have never been contained except I made the prison
MARY EVANS The happy ending is our national belief.
MARY MCCARTHY There is no pleasure in having nothing to do. The fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
MARY LITTLE The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its me...
MARY WEBB It is harder to kill a whisper than even a shouted calumny.
MARY STEWART Saddle your dreams before you ride em.
MARY WEBB Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift ...
MARY MCCARTHY No pressure, no diamonds.
MARY CASE Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
MARY BYRANT It seems safe to say that significant discovery, really creative thinking, does not occur with regar...
MARY HENLE A child is fed with milk and praise.
MARY LAMB You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call Failure is not the fal...
MARY PICKFORD Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.
MARY MCCARTHY A society person who is enthusiastic about modern painting or Truman Capote is already half a traito...
MARY MCCARTHY If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to l...
MARY DALY Why indeed must God be a noun? Why not a verb -- the most active and dynamic of all.
MARY DALY The divine egoism hat is genius.
MARY WEBB Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.
MARY HAYS The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.
MARY PICKFORD One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept s...
MARY OLIVER In violence we forget who we are.
MARY MCCARTHY We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us. One does not rape a...
MARY DALY If all men are born free, why is it that all women are born slaves?
MARY ASTELL It sounds extraordinary but it?s a fact that balance sheets can make fascinating reading.
MARY ARCHER Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascinati...
MARY MCCARTHY Dogs come when they are called; cats take a message and get back to you.
MARY BLY Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.
MARY MCCARTHY Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at f...
MARY CATHERWOOD Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty --excusable, perhaps, when there is such great beau...
MARY ARNIM In science, all facts no matter how trivial, enjoy democratic equality.
MARY MCCARTHY It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted...
MARY O'CONNOR No more tears now; I will think upon revenge.
MARY STUART A woman's asking for equality in the church would be comparable to a black person's demanding equali...
MARY DALY The best biographies leave their readers with a sense of having all but entered into a second life a...
MARY CABLE Life can be seen through your eyes but it is not fully appreciated until it is seen through your hea...
MARY XAVIER Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places.
MARY RENAULT Life can be seen your eyes but it is not fully appreciated until it is seen through your heart.
MARY XAVIER To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it again...
MARY OLIVER Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving.
MARY BATESON Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later.
MARY BLY In violence, we forget who we are
MARY MCCARTHY Genius . . . arises in the natural, aboriginal concern for the conscious unity of all phenomena.
MARY AUSTIN I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT Cakes are healthy too, you just eat a small slice.
MARY BERRY It's not good to make sentimental journeys. You see the differences instead of the sameness.
MARY ASTOR Congress
MARY MCCARTHY The incipient institution needs some stabilizing principle to stop its premature demise. That stabil...
MARY DOUGLAS In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very s...
MARY RENAULT It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death.
MARY RENAULT Watching my parents I've learnt a lesson many do not recognize. True love is not signaled by romanti...
MARY KATE The decent, strong person had to do decent, strong things like love unlovable people and keep peace ...
MARY CONNEALY Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and ro...
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT Humor is a rubber sword - it allows you to make a point without drawing blood.
MARY HIRSCH Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.
MARY MACCRACKEN I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.
MARY CHASE Most of us pass our lives never once laying eyes on our own organs, the most precious and amazing th...
MARY ROACH