Jessi Klein > Quotes

“I was a woman sobbing in a hotel corridor, which is kind of incredible, because when I was little I thought I was going to be a senator.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“Women have problem areas in a way that men don't. We have big hips and muffin tops. Men just have the thing where they create wars and wreak havoc all over the globe.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“This was when I learned one of the biggest secrets of being a woman, which is that much of the time, we don't feel like we're women at all.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“I wanted to structure a day where a hypothetical random snapshot of me looked like Carrie Bradshaw in her kimono, totally relaxed, not Brittany Murphy in Girl, Interrupted, diddling an old chicken under her bed. The”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“Ma'am is yet another horrible-sounding word in the lexicon of words that women are stuck with to describe various aspects of their body/life/mental state/hair. Vagina. Moist. Fallopian tubes. Yeast infection. Clitoris. Frizz. These are all terrible words, and yet they are our assigned descriptors. Who made up these words? Women certainly didn't. If, at the beginning of time, right after making vaginas, God had asked me, 'What would you like your most intimate and enjoyable part of yourself to be called?',' I most certainly wouldn't have said, 'Vagina.' No woman would, because vagina sounds like a First World War term that was invented to describe a trench that has been mostly blown apart but is still in use. Even off the very top of my head I feel like I could have come up with something better, like for instance the word papoose, which actually as I'm typing it feels like an incredibly brilliant word for vagina.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“Motherhood leaves you inevitably and profoundly changed; you can be similar to who you were - maybe? - but you'll never be the same.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“A mother's heroic journey is not about how she leaves, but how she stays.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“This is the lament of older women, and ultimately of all old people—that you become invisible. It is especially hard for women, though, whose entire lives have been spent spinning around the idea that if no one is staring at you, you’ve somehow failed.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“As a wolf, I’m a diamond in the rough. I crack jokes. My whole life is about trying, about speaking up in order to be seen, about howling with laughter or howling out how I see the world.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“My parents spent countless hours teaching me to read and write. My mother was an English teacher who patiently taught me where to put my periods and commas, and my father, who loves books more than anyone I know, taught me from an early age that books are precious and should be handled gently , "like butterflies.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“But becoming a mother alters every ince of your body, your routine, your soul, your heart.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“When you have a baby, there will be plenty more pain. The pain of recovery, no matter how you give birth. The pain of nursing. The pain of not fitting into any of your old clothes. The pain of not even fitting into your maternity jeans. The pain of hearing your baby cry and not knowing how to fix it. The pain of wondering whether your partner still finds you attractive. The pain of arguing with your husband while your child is in the other room. The pain of knowing that you witnessed the very first moment of this beautiful person’s life, and that one day, hopefully at least a hundred years from now, there will inevitably be a last moment.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“Sometimes we are too close. Sometimes our creativity, our relationship, our book, our project, this thing we are working so hard on, needs space from us. It’s okay, sometimes, to not just ask for help, but to acknowledge that in fact help might be the only answer. The truth is, there will be times where you actually must step away from what you love in order to love it right, when your absence might be more helpful than your presence. There will be times when in fact the right thing to do is to say, “I need a break.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“You know what? You had a rough weekend, but people are basically good. They really are. We’re all just on this crazy blue marble together.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“If you’re worried that skipping the pain of childbirth means you’re somehow cheating your baby, or yourself, you’re not. Because the truth is, life offers more than enough pain that you will not be able to skip.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“Not responding to the texts of a man who has wronged you is truly one of the sweetest pleasures in life..”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“When I was making my initial rough crossing into motherhood, I didn’t want a wizard or a magic person or some elf queen, I just desperately needed help from women who knew exactly what the fuck they were doing, because I definitely did not.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“Because now I know that everything bad can happen, and I am responsible for it not. Because sometimes I feel like keeping us from dying will kill me. Because I am on board, and I'm exhausted. Because I am on board, and I will never be used to being the driver. I still feel like the baby; like I could just cry this whole ride and never stop till we get home.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“I was worried that I was already a failure. At which point my friend said, “What are you trying to win?” What was I trying to win? I thought about it and realized—nothing. There’s nothing to win. There is so much pressure on women around birth and labor and mothering to do it one way or another. It’s so easy to believe the notion that having a baby demands complete and total sacrifice, and anything short of that is not enough. That if you’re not in pain, you’re selfish.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“I do feel I must point out, accepting that perhaps I am wrong on this but I don’t think I am, that there just doesn’t seem to be an equivalent male phenomenon wherein a notable portion of men in their fifties, post divorce, just get on Grindr and end up with a dude. I know we women aren’t perfect and fer sure we take energy to be in a relationship with, OF COURSE. Of course. But I’m just saying, maybe the undeniable truth is, life is easier with a wife.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“The truth is that motherhood is a hero’s journey. For most of us it’s not a journey outward, to the most fantastic and farthest-flung places, but inward, downward, to the deepest parts of your strength, to the innermost buried core of everything you are made of but didn’t know was there.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“I am mourning the loss of the time in my life when I could endlessly indulge in the joyful selfishness of an afternoon doing nothing but looking at art. Just exploring the relationship between myself and someone’s vision of beauty”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“Even though I’m home all the time, I rarely feel at home.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“What gets in the way of living with vitality," Tejpal asked.
Everything, I thought to myself.
"Wounds," Tejpal said. She talked about the importance of forgiveness, and how the most important step in forgiveness is to allow yourself to feel the pain of the hurt you received. Only then would the pain begin to heal.
Suddenly, Dracula leaned forward and spoke up. Even though this wasn't really a situation where you were supposed to speak without being called on. "That's not true," she blurted out angrily, her Long Island accent pulling all her vowels downward. "There are some things people do that hurt you forever and that cause scars that will never heal. Just 'cause you think about them doesn't mean they're going away."
All the women in the room turned around to stare at this angry person. This was supposed to be a touchy-feely, self-discovery happy place where Tejpal was in charge. You are not supposed to attack Tejpal. I sensed that people thought she was crazy and normally I would find her as annoying for not getting it as everyone else was, but instead I felt a wave of deep compassion. It was the first time during my visit to Miraval that I felt attuned to how deeply, painfully exposed people can allow themselves to be when there's even a sliver of permission to be honest.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“here I am, alive, writing this, and here you are, alive, reading it, which means our mothers did what heroes do: they kept us all alive to tell our own tales one day. And what I can tell you is that so much of the heroism of motherhood is the ability to swallow the sword. To swallow the pain and frustration and keep everything inside.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“We are alive.“
"One day we will die.“
"Some things will be the same, and some things will be different.”

In the dark I think, What if, when we die, everything is different and nothing is the same? (That is a terrifying thought.)

Then I think, What could I write that would make us all feel better?

Maybe:“Everything will be different, except for the love. The love will be the same.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“Are you having a natural birth?” I’m just trying to buy a sandwich. Is this complete stranger really asking about my plans re: my vagina?”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“A sockless man is not to be trusted.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“Men rise to the standards you hold them up to.”
― Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It

“Is it really possible that my trip to buy Nom-Noms is part of a meaningful narrative, a hero’s journey? In trying to process it, I wonder why I’ve felt such inner resistance to accepting that anything I do as a mother might actually be a page in a book. And really, it doesn’t take long to connect that feeling to the fact that in popular culture, at least in America for the past forever years, what mothers do is seen as so unremarkable it’s not just an unimportant story but not even a story at all.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood