# Quote — Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

> I mean to lead a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily — like a hermit crab. But I do not. I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity. My husband and five children must make their way in the world. The life I have chosen as a wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications.

- Author: [Anne Morrow Lindbergh](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh.md)
- Book: [Gift from the Sea](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anne_Morrow_Lindbergh#Gift_from_the_Sea_(1955)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-mean-to-lead

## More from this book

> I … understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has primarily to do with distractions … Women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life or saintly life.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-understand-why.md)

> I believe most people are aware of periods in their lives when they seem to be "in grace" and other periods when they feel "out of grace," even though they may use different words to describe these states. In the first happy condition, one seems to carry all one’s tasks before one lightly, as if borne along on a great tide; and in the opposite state one can hardly tie a shoe-string. It is true that a large part of life consists in learning a technique of tying the shoe-string, whether one is in grace or not. But there are techniques of living too; there are even techniques in the search for grace.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-believe-most.md)

> By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/by-and-large.md)