The Subway Girls Quotes

“Very few things in life unfold the way we thought they would. In fact, you should be suspect when they do. Who cares when the best things in life happen? Don’t you see? You’re getting everything you wanted. The packaging is a little unexpected and not ideal, but the stuff inside, the stuff that really counts, is just right.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“How lucky she was to have a best friend like Jojo. A girl who relied on truth as much as humor, realizing that the former was essential and the latter was what made life bearable.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Time has a really incredible way of dulling feelings that you think will be sharp for your entire life. One day you wake up, and sometimes it takes something like this for that to happen, but you realize that the point isn't so pointy. And the edge isn't so jagged. And you find in your heart a way to accept people for who they are, because it's not always entirely their fault.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“But it makes the experience of the problem easier. When I finally changed my perspective and accepted that those problems too shall pass, and life will go on, it was radically liberating. Hard times will always hurt, I’m not saying that. But changing the picture frame around those hard times changes the way you see them.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“I’ve always found in my life that answers become clear at unexpected times. You have to trust that they will and then keep your eyes wide-open for the signs. Sometimes they will be subtle, but they’ll always present themselves. And you have to be brave enough to take a risk even if it seems like there are a lot of reasons not to.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Why wouldn’t you give it a go, Charlotte? Life is all about collecting experiences, and this seems like a pretty exciting one. I’d do it in a second if someone ever gave me the chance.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“But sometimes life presents opportunities at inopportune times. And sometimes you have to ignore all the reasons to say no even if there are a lot of them, and go with the reasons to say yes.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that I need to make my life happen for me, not let it happen to me.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“But it was time for Monday morning. The great arbiter of fresh starts and calendars stretching for days on end. Office workers in Park Avenue corner offices and pattern makers in Garment District walk-ups were drunk with the possibility of a whole week set before them like a new school year to a class full of wide-eyed kindergarteners. The idea that there was so much time to make things happen.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“I never wanted to be a mother,” Rose said wistfully. “I thought that because I had a terrible mother, I would be a terrible mother.”
“That’s how I feel,” Olivia said.
“Don’t make the same decision I made. I actually think the opposite can be true, meaning that if you had a terrible mother, you are that much more conscious of being a wonderful mother yourself.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“She realized after they’d been discussing her family for a while that being able to share herself with someone might have been what she needed all along to absolve her of her guilt, her shame, and her uncertainty about whether she was making the right decisions.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Let her tell him how she felt and how she just couldn’t do it anymore. How she couldn’t enable her father, how she couldn’t rescue her mother, how she couldn’t keep putting herself last in a trio of dysfunction. How she realized that the only way to heal was to extricate herself entirely from the one relationship that was supposed to be the most pure and protective. But it wasn’t.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Just last week I thought that if I lost my job at The Osborne Agency, it would be a disastrous, end-of-the-world situation, but now I realize I was afraid of losing something else, something I honestly don’t care about anymore.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“No one had ever done anything like this for her. Took care of her. She had to admit, though she was staunchly in favor of taking care of herself, that it felt kind of nice.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“She liked to think of herself as spontaneous, but she’d never really had an opportunity to test out the theory.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“It was confusing for Olivia because she was so attracted to Matt in so many ways, while Ben seemed so nice, maybe too nice, and, even worse, predictable. But the more she thought about it, the more Olivia realized that those were actually good things for a man to be. That she deserved to be with a man who would be kind to her and whose motivations were clear and rational. She’d been surprised to find herself thinking of Ben ever since.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“She got on the train and found a seat on the cold molded plastic. Looking around, Olivia saw her fellow passengers wearing masks of disinterest. But Olivia knew that very few of those masks reflected what was going on in the brains of their owners. Everyone was entertaining their own parties of inner turmoil. No one had it easy.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“But she also felt that when you’d found what you were looking for, you couldn’t always be too choosy about where you’d found it.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Charlotte was aware she was yelling, aware she was escalating the situation perhaps a little unnecessarily, but she didn’t care. This felt marvelous. To say what she meant and not care a lick about what would happen next.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“The irony that a woman’s gender could be both a liability and an asset in business was not lost on her.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Her mother had always taught her to keep her expectations in check. That way she’d never be disappointed. Yes, Mother dear, Charlotte thought, but that way you can never dream.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“All that remained were memories that clouded her thoughts like black smoke from a fire, aches buried so deeply within Olivia’s soul that it felt like they would never go away.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Thank you so much. That was so nice of you,” Olivia said, suddenly feeling both uncomfortable for intruding on some other family and close to tears with yearning, realizing how much she was missing in her life by not having dinners like this more often. Or ever.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“You just assume that the times they lived in were so different that they couldn’t possibly know what it’s like for us. But you know what, from reading those posters, and all the other articles, those women were going through the same shit we are. All the conflicts with work and personal lives – that is nothing new.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“When I meet women in their eighties and nineties, it’s easy to forget that they were living these vibrant lives when they were younger. It’s awful, but I admit that I underestimate older women. I don’t give them the credit they’re due. I mean, I realize they paved the way for us and all, but still, not enough credit. We could probably learn so much from them.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“When Olivia imagined her life with all those predictable men, she couldn’t see past the stereotypical gender-roled, routine-sex, so-so married life she knew they’d have together.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“The renewed sense of purpose energized Olivia, and she was thankful for the adrenaline rush. It was her resting state. Olivia only felt like herself, the self that was authentic, when the pressure was turned up all the way to the point that would make most people explode.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls

“Charlotte had anticipated that when she got her first job, she’d feel desired in a way no mother or lover ever could make her feel. She had little to no experience feeling desired by either a mother or a lover, so the disappointment in having to wait even longer felt almost violent. An assault against everything she had longed for. A barricade blocking her emergence from childhood to adulthood.”
― Susie Orman Schnall, The Subway Girls