Jessica Mitford
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitfordwas an English author, journalist, civil rights activist and political campaigner, and was one of the Mitford sisters. She became an American citizen in 1944...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth11 September 1917
CountryUnited States of America
beautiful memories order
Alas, poor Yorick! How surprised he would be to see how his counterpart of today is whisked off to a funeral parlor and is in short order sprayed, sliced, pierced, pickled, trussed, trimmed, creamed, waxed, painted, rouged and neatly dressed - transformed from a common corpse into a Beautiful Memory Picture.
book reading years
A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.
summer growing-up spring
Growing up in the English countryside seemed an interminable process. Freezing winter gave way to frosty spring, which in turn merged into chilly summer-but nothing ever, ever happened.
war fighting men
I discovered that Human Nature was not, as I had always supposed, a fixed and unalterable entity, that wars are not caused by a natural urge in men to fight, that ownership of land and factories is not necessarily the natural reward of greater wisdom and energy.
jobs thinking circles
One is only really inwardly comfortable, so to speak, after one's life has assumed some sort of shape. Not just a routine, like studying or a job or being a housewife, but something more complete than all those, which would include goals set by oneself and a circle of life-time type friends. I think this is one of the hardest things to achieve, in fact often just trying doesn't achieve it but rather it seems to develop almost by accident.
running america office
Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.'
objectivity objectives
Objectivity? I've always had an objective.
running mean america
Things on the whole are faster in America; people don't stand for election, they run for office. If a person says he's sick, it doesn't mean regurgitating, it means ill. Mad means angry, not insane. Don't ask for the left-luggage; it's called a checkroom.
funeral industry
Now there is a society where the funeral industry got completely out of control.
writing trying world
the whole point of muck-raking, apart from all the jokes, is to try to do something about what you've been writing about. You may not be able to change the world but at least you can embarrass the guilty.
ambition lexicographer firsts
Funeralese has had its ups and downs. The word 'morticians,' first used in Embalmers Monthly for February, 1895, was barred by the Chicago Tribune in 1932, 'not for lack of sympathy with the ambition of undertakers to be well regarded, but because of it. If they haven't the sense to save themselves from their own lexicographers, we shall not be guilty of abetting them in their folly.
sister-in-law want my-sister
I have nothing against undertakers personally. It's just that I wouldn't want one to bury my sister.
enemy important passing
Enemies are, to me, as important as friends in my life, and when they die I mourn their passing.
children knowing interesting
Knowing few children of my age with whom to compare notes, I envied the children of literature to whom interesting things were always happening ...