Judith Martin Quotes

Sadly, e-mail has triggered the decline of the handwritten note; I have seen its near-disappearance in my lifetime.

There are certain realities we must speak of with our children that were not present when I was a child.

It's funny; in this era of e-mail and voice mail and all those things that even I did not grow up with, a plain old paper letter takes on amazing intimacy.

Our kids now face pressures that didn’t exist when I was growing up…. As parents, it’s very hard to help our children because their experiences are so different to anything we had.

It's a long haul bringing up our children to be good; you have to keep doing that — bring them up — and that means bringing things up with them: Asking, telling, sounding them out, sounding off yourself — finding, through experience, your own words, your own way of putting them together. You have to learn where you stand, and make sure your kids learn [where you stand], understand why, and soon, you hope, they'll be standing there beside you, with you.

I was a pen pal with one guy, a long time ago. I think we only wrote to each other twice. We didn't really keep it up that long. But, I love it. I think it's really sweet and very creative and freeing, when you get to put a pen to paper, 'cause you don't really do it that much these days, with all this technology.

What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call.

I realized how valuable the art and practice of writing letters are, and how important it is to remind people of what a treasure letters--handwritten letters--can be. In our throwaway era of quick phone calls, faxes, and email, it's all to easy never to find the time to write letters. That's a great pity--for historians and the rest of us.

You have only one chance to raise your child.

I wrote a huge number of letters that spring: one a week to Naoko, several to Reiko, and several more to Midori. I wrote letters in the classroom, I wrote letters at my desk at home with Seagull in my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.

I love my children unconditionally.

Character, not passion keeps marriages together long enough to do their work of raising children into mature, responsible, productive citizens.

How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous.

I am the youngest of 14 children, so I rarely got a chance to speak. If I have an opportunity for talking, I talk

We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town better than he found it.

When I write to you, I feel your breath; when you read them, I imagine you feel mine. Is it that way with you too? These letters are part of us now, part of our history, a reminder forever that we made it through this time. Thank you for helping me survive this year, but more than that, thank you in advance for all the years to come.

Love and trust, in the space between what’s said and what’s heard in our life, can make all the difference in the world.

Passion, sexual passion, may lead to marriage, but cannot sustain marriage. The purpose of marriage is the raising of children, for which patience, not passion, is the necessary foundation.

What the world needs is not romantic lovers who are sufficient unto themselves, but husbands and wives who live in communities, relate to other people, carry on useful work and willingly give time and attention to their children.

Our children need our presence, not our presents.

... in this impersonal world of the nine-digit zip code, credit cards, and numbered bank accounts, in this world of no marriage, late marriage, and remarriage, the operative word in office relationships is 'family.

If we would mend the World, we should mend Ourselves; and teach our Children to be, not what we are, but what they should be.

I feel like if people are going to go to the effort to get a stamp and, you know, put it on an envelope that, you know, it's a big effort these days. So I often write back.

The greatest gift you and your partner can give your children is the example of an intimate, healthy, and loving relationship.