Janis Mitchell > Janis's Quotes

“What she would do? She used to say we are made up of different parts, some good, some bad, and that a healthy mind can tolerate this ambivalence and juggle both good and bad at the same time. Mental illness is precisely about a lack of this kind of integration—we end up losing contact with the unacceptable parts of ourselves.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“though that turned out to be a myth—some arbitrary math to make shiny the otherwise rudimentary concept of cell regeneration and death—there is some truth to it.”
― Julie Clark, The Ones We Choose

“My interest in science was sparked with a lie: Every seven years, the cells in our body are replaced with completely new cells. Biologically, no part of your old self exists. My high school biology teacher delivered this information, not knowing the hope his words would ignite in me. I latched on to the idea that after enough time, there would be no part of me that had firsthand knowledge of my father or the pain he caused. That all the way down to my cells, he would eventually become a stranger. Even though that turned out to be a myth—some arbitrary math to make shiny the otherwise rudimentary concept of cell regeneration and death—there is some truth to it. All cells have a life cycle. Our bodies are made up of approximately seventy-five trillion living cells, each one toiling away at a specific job for the entirety of its life. They self-replicate through mitosis, splitting in half to create an exact copy. Every minute, we create one hundred million new red blood cells, which will live for four months before dying. White blood cells last longer—about a year. Skin cells only live two to three weeks. So if you’ve broken up with your boyfriend, in a few months, there will be no part of you he’s touched. That much is true. But there are some cells that last a lifetime. Brain cells in the cerebral cortex start recording from conception and don’t stop until death. This is where your memory lives. Your thoughts. Your awareness. These cells carry with them every moment of your life—even the ones you’d rather leave behind.”
― Julie Clark, The Ones We Choose

“Oxytocin, “the bonding hormone,” is well documented in mothers, helping them through labor and in forming an attachment to their babies. A recent study has found that oxytocin levels in new fathers are nearly identical to those in mothers—even several weeks postpartum—proving that fathers are as biologically programmed to care for their offspring as mothers.”
― Julie Clark, The Ones We Choose

“TAKOTSUBO CARDIOMYOPATHY No one’s ever died of a broken heart. Except why do we have so many phrases that describe the physicality of grief? Heartsick Heartbroken Heartache. The heart bears the brunt of our grief, and it takes a toll. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a condition that mimics a heart attack. Its cause? Severe emotional or physical stress. Turns out, you can die of a broken heart after all.”
― Julie Clark, The Ones We Choose

“a day so perfect that the earth itself seemed sorry to let it pass, so slowed down its roll into evening and let it linger.”
― Ron Rash, Serena

“Elmo’s fire?” “No, I haven’t.” “It’s when lightning makes blue circles around the propellers, and blue flames form on the wingtips and are dragged”
― Irma Joubert, The Girl From the Train

“behind the aircraft.” “Sounds scary!” she said. “It looks worse than it is,” he said. “After”
― Irma Joubert, The Girl From the Train

“looked at my wife and my son, and thought how it was down to me to look after them, and I felt a mix of macho pride and blind terror.”
― Clare Mackintosh, After the End

“Finally Albert whispered, “Listen, Odie, what does a shepherd eat?” I didn’t know where he was going with that, so I didn’t reply. “His flock,” Albert told me. “One by one.”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“Everything that’s been done to us we carry forever.”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“But somewhere in the vault of our hearts, in a place our brains can’t or won’t touch, the worst is stored, and the only sure key to it is in our dreams.”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“Which turned out to be a thing I couldn’t do. Not because imagination failed me, but because I was afraid to dream in that way. In my whole life, I could recall no dream ever coming true.”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“THERE IS A river that runs through time and the universe, vast and inexplicable, a flow of spirit that is at the heart of all existence, and every molecule of our being is a part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“Perhaps the most important truth I’ve learned across the whole of my life is that it’s only when I yield to the river and embrace the journey that I find peace.”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“You know, it’s almost impossible to fire a minister,” she said. “That’s why so many churches are so awful.”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“Nan had always known, even as a child, that God did not answer prayers for worldly things like candy or new shoes. God answered prayers that helped her help others. God did not change the circumstances of your life; God changed you. She had seen it happen too many times to doubt it. She had seen so many people walk nervously down the aisle of her father’s church to accept God at the altar, then had seen them find friends, drink less, hug their children more. She had seen the transformative power of the church, and she knew there was a God, even if no one could be sure in what form God”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“I didn’t marry a minister. I married the man.”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“You’re so matter-of-fact,” she said, “so unembarrassed.” “I’ve never understood embarrassment,” Annelise said. “Why are we bothered by what is difficult? Why are we unsettled by what is strange? I’ve always just been curious. I always just want to find out as much as I can.” “But”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“It seemed a miracle. It seemed he had asked God for more than comfort and God had given it. It seemed he had asked God to cure his son, and God was trying. It seemed that, despite Charles’s abandonment, God was present in his life, and Charles was unbearably ashamed.”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“How can you live without believing in people or God?”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“For every time Lola was happy, she would be happy. Every time Lola was unhappy, she would be unhappy. Her life was doubled, instantly, and she felt the new length of it, the breadth of it, like opening a door one day and discovering her kitchen had turned into the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“His faith was rooted in the idea that God worked through man. God did not act upon people; God inspired them, existing only as an animating force. Therefore, medicine was a miracle. But what, then, was the failure of medicine? He thought of Charles, whose soul was crying out for progress, who wanted to lock doctors in their offices and make them study harder, faster, who wanted people to give money, to call congressmen. Charles, who had given up on ideas and wanted, now, for action to lead to success. When it didn’t, whom would Charles blame?”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“He had once tried to inspire people to believe. Now he knew that people believed or did not believe. It was not he who did the convincing.”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“There are three kinds of trials in life,” he said, relishing the simplicity of the idea. He heard his voice grow stronger, stood straight to accommodate it. “There are the trials God gives you,” he continued, “which almost always lead to wisdom, and so are worth the trouble. There are the trials you force upon yourself, which should be abandoned at their onset.” He nodded to show them that he realized he was speaking about himself. “And there are the trials we create for one another,” he continued, “which are more complicated because it is impossible to know whose hand is guiding them. “The only advice I can give anyone is this,” he said. “Don’t ever shrink from those last trials. Run to them. Because only in the quality of your struggle with one another will you learn anything about yourself. Sometimes that struggle is nearly impossible to survive, but it is those trials which make a life.”
― Cara Wall, The Dearly Beloved

“The house where she had raised her son—never, ever realizing that she herself had been raising a motherless child, now a long, long way from home.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“She knew that the suffering of women started in the suffering of men, that the bondages of one became the bondages of the other.”
― Etaf Rum, A Woman Is No Man

“don’t care about being happy.” Deya’s surprise must have been written across her face because Sarah continued, “Too often being happy means being passive or playing it safe. There’s no skill required in happiness, no strength of character, nothing extraordinary. Its discontent that drives creation the most—passion,”
― Etaf Rum, A Woman Is No Man

“desire, defiance. Revolutions don’t come from a place of happiness. If anything, I think it’s sadness, or discontent at least, that’s at the root of everything beautiful.”
― Etaf Rum, A Woman Is No Man