Candace Bushnell Quotes

Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it.

~ Candace Bushnell

Maybe mistakes are what make our fate... without them what would shape our lives? Maybe if we had never veered off course we wouldn't fall in love, have babies, or be who we are. After all, things change, so do cities, people come into your life and they go. But it's comforting to know that the ones you love are always in your heart... and if you're very lucky, a plane ride away

~ Candace Bushnell

The universe may not always play fair, but at least it's got a hell of a sense of humor.

~ Candace Bushnell

Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with.

~ Candace Bushnell

Rule number one: Why is it that the one time a cute guy talks to you, you have a friend who’s in crisis?

~ Candace Bushnell

Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder--no matter how old you became and how much you'd seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.

~ Candace Bushnell

It was ironic, but when you scratched the surface, most successful men were working for one thing only--to retire--and the sooner the better. Whereas women were the complete opposite. She had never heard a woman say she was working so she could retire to a desert island or to live on a boat. It was probably, she thought, because most women didn't think they deserved to do nothing.

~ Candace Bushnell

Life gives you lots of chances to screw up which means you have just as many chances to get it right.

~ Candace Bushnell

The car was on the FDR drive now and, turning her head, she glanced out at the bleak brown buildings of the projects that stretched for blocks along the drive. Something inside her sank at the sight of all that sameness, and she suddenly felt defeated.She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. In the past year, she'd started experiencing these moments of desperate emptiness, as if nothing really mattered, nothing was ever going to change, there was nothing new; and she could see her life stretching before her--one endless long day after the next, in which every day was essentially the same. Meanwhile, time was marching on, and all that was happening to her was that she was getting older and smaller, and one day she would be no bigger than a dot, and then she would simply disappear. Poof! Like a small leaf burned up under a magnifying glass in the sun. These feelings were shocking to her, because she'd never experienced world-weariness before. She'd never had time. All her life, she'd been striving and striving to become this thing that was herself--the entity that was Nico O'Neilly. And then, one morning, time had caught up with her and she had woken up and realized that she was there. She had arrived at her destination, and she had everything she'd worked so hard for: a stunning career, a loving (well, sort of) husband, whom she respected, and a beautiful eleven-year-old daughter whom she adored.She should have been thrilled. But instead, she felt tired. Like all those things belonged to someone else.

~ Candace Bushnell

Something good happens to you, and you let off a different energy that attracts other good things.

~ Candace Bushnell

People are always telling women to lose weight, and then when they do, other women attack them for it.

~ Candace Bushnell

If everyone in New York took sides over these petty, insignificant arguments, no one would have any friends at all.

~ Candace Bushnell

it's telling yourself that you want the things that society tells you you should want. women thikn that survival depends on conformity. but for some women, conformity is death. it's a death to the soul. the soul, she said, is a precious thing. when you live a lie, you damage the soul.

~ Candace Bushnell

Money follows art. Money wants what it can't buy. Class and talent. And remember while there's a talent for making money, it takes real talent to know how to spend it.

~ Candace Bushnell

As long as one refuses to know one's place, there's no telling what one can do in the world.

~ Candace Bushnell

There are worse things than being thirty-five, single, and female in New York. Like: Being twenty-five, singled, and female in New York. It's a rite of passage few women would want to repeat. It's about sleeping with the wrong men, wearing the wrong clothes, having the wrong roommate, saying the wrong thing, being ignored, getting fired, not being taken seriously, and generally being treated like shit. But it's necessary.

~ Candace Bushnell

All those men who end up disappointing you. After a while, you don't even want to have feelings anymore. You just want to get on with your life.

~ Candace Bushnell

The most important thing in business is a persona, Nico,' he was fond of saying. 'People want to know immediately what they're dealing with. And when they think about you, you've got to stand out in their minds--like one of those characters in a novel.

~ Candace Bushnell

You can get used to anything, I guess, if you've been there enough.

~ Candace Bushnell

My anger is like some rudimentary, single-celled beast, an exploding virus of fury that paralyses rational thought and blinds me to everything except one single goal...

~ Candace Bushnell

It was the first honest emotional connection I'd had in a while. So I immediately panicked and had to leave.

~ Candace Bushnell

Zizi was young and often confused about how to live his life, and when he made a choice he clung to it with fierce resolve, as if to beat his uncertainty into submission.

~ Candace Bushnell

The city was different back then--poor and crumbling--kept alive only by the gritty determination and steely cynicism of its occupants. But underneath the dirt was the apple-cheeked optimism of possibility, and while she worked, the whole city seemed to throb along with her.

~ Candace Bushnell

She didn't want to have anything to do with the party. She was tired of feeling like she didn't fit in, but she didn't want to go home, either, because she was a tired of being lonely and she was a little drunk.

~ Candace Bushnell

Some secrets are better left at that -as secrets.

~ Candace Bushnell

Why do I keep evading my work? Is it because I’m afraid of being confronted by my lack of abilities?

~ Candace Bushnell

Don’t you ever get scared?” I ask.“Of what?” She says.“Of not being good enough.”“You mean at writing?” L’il asks.I nod. “What if I’m the only one who thinks I can do it and no one else does? What if I’m fooling myself-““Oh, Carrie.” She smiles. “Don’t you know that every writer feels that way? Fear is part of the job.

~ Candace Bushnell

Just because someone is a girl doesn't mean she can't be tough and practical and have adventures. That's the way most girls are-until they get around guys. Then guys make them act all stupid.

~ Candace Bushnell

Why shouldn’t I? I demand silently. Why shouldn’t I become a famous writer? Like Norman Mailer. Or Philip Roth. And F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemmingway and all those other men. Why can’t I be like them? I mean, what is the point of becoming a writer if no one reads what you’ve written?Damn Viktor Greene and The New School. Why do I have to keep proving myself all of the time? Why can’t I be like L’il, with everyone praising and encouraging me? Or Rainbow, with her sense of entitlement. I bet Viktor Greene never asked Rainbow why she wanted to be a writer.Or what if-I wince-Viktor Greene is right? I’m not a writer after all.

~ Candace Bushnell

When one good thing happened to you, other good things seemed to follow.

~ Candace Bushnell

But that was the problem with New York: No matter how succesful you thought you were, there was always someone who was richer, more successful, more famous.. The idea of it was sometimes enough to make you want to give up.

~ Candace Bushnell

That was the wonderful thing about New York: Years of bad blood could be wiped out with a single gesture of friendliness.

~ Candace Bushnell

Beware what you consume, lest you appetite grow by what it feeds on.

~ Candace Bushnell

The key to life is your attitude. Whether you're single or married or have kids or don't have kids, it's how you look at your life, what you make of it. It's about making the best of your life wherever you are in life.

~ Candace Bushnell

Women with money and women in power are two uncomfortable ideas in our society.

~ Candace Bushnell

Well in the book Carrie was my alter ego. In real life, Sarah Jessica and I don't look anything alike. But people do say that we sound alike. Sarah Jessica is an adorable girl and she is very funny.

~ Candace Bushnell

If I'm with a man, is that going to prevent me from achieving my goal? What sacrifices will I have to make in terms of being myself, if I'm with a man? Something that young women find out really quickly is that when you start dating, all of a sudden you're supposed to have a role. You're not allowed to just be yourself.

~ Candace Bushnell

I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should, because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

~ Candace Bushnell