Text Me When You Get Home Quotes

“My people push me to do better. They listen, but not in a quiet, passive way. They’re always on point for correcting me when I put myself down or fall into the trap of thinking things are my fault when they aren’t. My friends are brilliant, funny, fearless, wise, and generous. We champion each other in e-mails, in texts, in congratulatory flowers, or simply by saying how much we trust each other.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“In going back and thinking about my friendships and hearing about other women's, I see this: Our friends are not our second choices. They are our dates for Friday nights and for ex-boyfriends' weddings. They are the visitors to our hometowns and hospital rooms. They are the first people we tell about any news, whether it's good, terrible, or mundane. They are our plus ones at office parties. They are the people we're raising children with. They are our advocates, who, no matter what, make us feel like we won't fail. They are the people who will struggle with us and who will stay with us. They are who we text when we get home.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“Prioritizing friendship is sometimes tricky; society often indicates to women that it’s not on the same level as the other relationships in our lives, such as the ones with our romantic partners, our children, or even our jobs. Devoting ourselves to finding spouses, caring for children, or snagging a promotion is acceptable, productive behavior. Spending time strengthening our friendships, on the other hand, is seen more like a diversion.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“The women I love are like a life raft I didn’t know I was looking for before I got on it. But my friendships are not just about being nice. My people push me to do better. They listen, but not in a quiet, passive way. They’re always on point for correcting me when I put myself down or fall into the trap of thinking things are my fault when they aren’t. My friends are brilliant, funny, fearless, wise, and generous. We champion each other in e-mails, in texts, in congratulatory flowers, or simply by saying how much we trust each other.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“As we get older that prominence that a best friend holds can fall away—adult women are more likely to be asked if they have a boyfriend than a best friend and to wear an engagement ring instead of a BFF charm. Because of this, it can be frustrating for some women to get across how fundamental their attachment to their best friend”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“got lucky. When I started to make friendships my main focus, I rarely felt alone; what I gave out in friend love, I almost always got back times two. It was sort of like we were all starved for this kind of friendship, for straight-up, openly, and honestly being thrilled we were in each other’s lives.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“Our friendships—the ones we’re living every day—can stand on their own. They are supportive, enthralling, entirely wonderful, and, often, all we need.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“When women stop seeing each other as rivals, whom they nonetheless have to be nice to, we'll be free from this clumsy middle ground of being frenemies. We can compete against each other. We can face off and admit what we really want and that it hurts when we don't get it. But we can also understand each other—and with that kind of empathy, instead of disingenuous smiles, we might be able to lift each other up.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“I should have learned how to tell another girl she’d hurt my feelings or understand I’d hurt hers. I should have been able to figure out how to say that I didn’t know how to turn down a boy’s attention, or that I’d rather not come along, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still your friend.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“I read a quote once that said, ‘Friendships are the masterpieces of nature,’” Jane tells Madeline at one point. “I know it’s cheesy but you’re totally my masterpiece.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“For me, these are the love-drunk, sometimes actually drunk, near-exhausted thoughts I have to send out before I fall asleep. They could be the name of some cultural reference we couldn’t remember, a belated compliment (“your skin looked so great tonight”), or another twist in the same joke we’d been making all evening. It all feels important to say right then, and I think that’s because of both how happy I feel after I’ve seen my friends and the fear—rational or not—that these times we have together may disappear at any moment. So we say: Text me when you get home. Tell me you’re safe. I’m always here for you. Let’s keep talking. CHAPTER”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“We're reshaping the idea of what our public support systems are supposed to look like and what they can be. Women who might have assumed they could find care, kindness, and deep conversations only in romantic relationships are no longer limited to that plotline. Whether women marry or not, whether they have children or not, their friends are fundamental parts of their lives that they won't be giving up.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“But when I decided I wasn’t ready to marry my long-term boyfriend in my early thirties, I looked around, and instead of being unsure, I was inspired. Surrounding me were a bunch of women who were doing exactly what I wanted to do: striving to do good work, setting themselves apart, and aligning themselves with other amazing people.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“Women who say, "Text me when you get home," aren't just asking for reassurance that you've made it to your bed unharmed. It's not only about safety. It's about solidarity. It's about us knowing how unsettling it can feel when you've been surrounded by friends and then are suddenly by yourself again. It's about us understanding that women who are alone get unwanted attention and scrutiny.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“The people who are part of my everyday right now—who invite me to dinners and plays and movies and yoga, who amuse me, and who understand me—may be less present someday.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“With most groups, I’m desperate to be part of them,” Ruthie says about Scandal Club. “And then when I am, I feel so isolated because I realize I’m my own person.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“We’ve always approached every discussion with, ‘You’re more important to me as a human than as a writing partner. This fight isn’t worth blowing that up to me.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“I felt special around men, and with a woman I can really be put in my place, and I’m on the same level as them.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“it’s our friends who move us into new homes, friends with whom we buy or care for pets, friends with whom we mourn death and experience illness, friends alongside whom some us may raise children and see them into adulthood,”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“Before marriage I was wildly interested in sex,” she writes to Avis, “but since joining up with my old goat, it has taken its proper position in my life.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“My parents, who are white and upper-middle class, did exactly this. They believed the family unit superseded other relationships, and my early thinking that female friendships were superfluous came directly from their example and that of other families like ours in my hometown.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“What they concluded was that when women feel tense or agitated, they often instinctively calm themselves by reaching out to and nurturing others. Stressed women get a surge of oxytocin, a hormone that propels women to seek out their friends.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

“In its earliest uses, a catfight meant an actual physical altercation between women. One of the first citings of the term, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1854 by writer Benjamin G. Ferris to describe scuffles between Mormon wives in his book Utah and the Mormons: The History, Government, Doctrines, Customs, and Prospects of the Latter-day Saints. After he spent six months observing the community, Ferris wrote about the Mormon men practicing polygamy, or having more than one wife, and described the styles of the houses they lived in, which were designed in order to “keep the women . . . as much as possible, apart, and prevent those terrible cat-fights which sometimes occur, with all the accompaniments of Billingsgate [vulgar and coarse language], torn caps, and broken broom-sticks.”
― Kayleen Schaefer, Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship