Judith Claire Mitchell Quotes & Sayings

He didn't know what I meant. Intellectually he did, I think. But not in the way we understand it."

"Lucky him."

"He just listened. He was sympathetic and nonjudgmental."

"That's good."

"Is it? If someone you care about tells you they are constantly thinking of ending it all, shouldn't you be unsympathetic and very judgmental? — Judith Claire Mitchell

Of all the stories our mother told us when we were girls, the story about Lenz and the snowflakes and the sky was our favorite. We were children ourselves; we empathized with a little boy's failure to understand an adult's message. We got why his misapprehension was cute and silly, but we also got why it was wonderful, why this was a glorious way to see the world; not reduced to one of its component colors, but broad and encompassing and mystical, and the whole thing revolving around little old you. — Judith Claire Mitchell

Why doesn't anyone tell you we all wind up married to Henry the VIII?...
...My dear Anne Boleyn,...the only way a woman can avoid waking up next to Henry is to model herself after his daughter Elizabeth and sleep next to no one at all. — Judith Claire Mitchell

At the same time, if we were feeling a knot of guilt about our decision re: dying, it might have been because we regretted our failure to achieve a certain kind of wisdom born from certain kinds of life experiences...Our skittishness when it came to any crisis, the preference we had for deflecting important conversations with jokes, rather than facing them head-on. It was fine, we agreed, not to want to grow old. Fine, too, to take steps to ensure we didn't grow old. But we'd also avoided growing up. We'd lived our lives like perpetual children, hiding in corners, never knowing what to say, never knowing what to do. If our plan to die was problematic, it was problematic in that it eliminated the possibility of our ever becoming serious, capable women. — Judith Claire Mitchell