An Unquiet Mind

by

Kay Redfield Jamison

Kay’s Chairman Character Analysis

The chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. He surprises Kay by reacting to the news of her manic-depressive illness by telling her that many people on the faculty are affected by the disorder, and that without such faculty members, the school would be a much more boring place.

Kay’s Chairman Quotes in An Unquiet Mind

The An Unquiet Mind quotes below are all either spoken by Kay’s Chairman or refer to Kay’s Chairman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Madness Theme Icon
).
Chapter 12 Quotes

It was not without a sense of dread that I waited for [my chairman’s] response to my telling him that I was being treated for manic-depressive illness, and that I needed to discuss the issue of my hospital privileges with him. I watched his face for some indication of how he felt. Suddenly, he reached across the table, put his hand on mine, and smiled. “Kay, dear,” he said, “l know you have manic- depressive illness.” He paused, and then laughed. “If we got rid of all of the manic-depressives on the medical school faculty, not only would we have a much smaller faculty, it would also be a far more boring one.”

Related Characters: Kay Redfield Jamison (speaker), Kay’s Chairman
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:
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