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" I'm not an early adopter. I'll only start wearing new styles of clothing once they're practically out of date, and I won't move into a neighborhood until it's fully saturated with upscale coffee shops. "

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" Unlike the time sink of binge-watching a TV series, podcasts actually made me more efficient. Practically every dull activity - folding laundry, applying makeup - became tolerable when I did it while listening to a country singer describing his hardscrabble childhood, or a novelist defending her open marriage. "

Pamela Druckerman

Time

Childhood

" Discrimination was a problem before terrorism. Now, the bad deeds of a few people have made life worse for millions. "

" I spend much of my free time listening to podcasts of American comedians talking to each other. "

" In your 40s, you kind of know how things are likely to go, and you're better at saying, 'You know what? That just doesn't suit me...' I remember thinking in my 30s, 'I should go to Burning Man. I could be a Burning Man person.' And in my 40s, I'm like, 'You know what? I'm never going to go to Burning Man.' "

" The overarching conventional wisdom - what everyone from government experts to my French girlfriends take as articles of faith - is that restrictive diets generally don't make you healthier or slimmer. Instead, it's best to eat a variety of high-quality foods in moderation and pay attention to whether you're hungry. "

" America's parenting customs can shock foreigners. "

" I'm a third-generation Miamian. I'm fond of it. I'm an expatriate, so it's the only American city I can still legitimately claim. "

" Teach your kids emotional intelligence. Help them become more evolved than you are. Explain that, for instance, not everyone will like them. "

" When we're in the U.S., my kids instantly start snacking all the time. I don't know how it happens. There is just more food available all the time. There aren't all these little different varieties of snack foods in France. "

Pamela Druckerman

Start

Time

" What you can say, what French parents say to their kids is, 'You don't have to eat everything, honey, you just have to taste it.' And it's that tasting little by little by little that gets kids more familiar with the food and more comfortable with it and more likely to eat it the next time. "

" The French don't think everyone should have the same bank balance, but they're offended by extremes of inequality. "

" Here's some news you might find surprising: By and large, the French like Jews. "

" Where Americans might coo over a child's most inane remark to boost his confidence, middle-class French parents teach their kids to be concise and amusing, to keep everyone listening. "

" Eating among the French certainly affected me. After a few years here, I gave up most of my selective food habits. "

" I spent most of my adolescence feeling awkward but never once mentioned it. "

" When people used to ask me what I missed about America, I would say, 'The optimism.' I grew up in the land of hope, then moved to one whose catchphrases are 'It's not possible' and 'Hell is other people.' I walked around Paris feeling conspicuously chipper. "

" Being an immigrant mother can be hard, but being a poor immigrant mother is much harder. You don't generally get to sit in cafes polishing your French by reading 'Le Monde.' "

" One of the maddening things about being a foreigner in France is that hardly anyone in the rest of the world knows what's really happening here. They think Paris is a socialist museum where people are exceptionally good at eating small bits of chocolate and tying scarves. "

" Not many foreigners move to Paris for their dream job. Many do it on a romantic whim. "

" Just do what you want more often. Don't be so worried about what other people expect. "

" There's this idea in America that you can be whatever you want. That remains an ideal in terms of how you dress too - when you go shopping, you try on all possible selves and then decide. "

" In the English books, the American kids' books, typically, there is a problem, the characters grapple with that problem, and the problem is resolved. "

" Your child probably won't get into the Ivy League or win a sports scholarship. At age 24, he might be back in his childhood bedroom, in debt, after a mediocre college career. Raise him so that, if that happens, it will still have been worth it. "

" I'm always hoping no one is following me around with a camera. "

Pamela Druckerman

Always

Around

" Around my neighborhood, I'm known as the American who talks to her computer while she types. "

" I've never gotten a good idea while checking Twitter or shopping. "

" As an American married to an Englishman and living in France, I've spent much of my adult life trying to decode the rules of conversation in three countries. Paradoxically, these rules are almost always unspoken. "

" I guess we're all supposed to get used to living in a more dangerous world. "

Pamela Druckerman

Dangerous

Used

" Even for natives, French satire is rarely laugh-out-loud funny. Its unspoken punch line is typically that things have gone irrevocably wrong, and the government is to blame. "

" The French aren't known for being hilarious. When I told Parisians I was interested in French humor, they'd say 'French what?' "