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"Ever since the Christmas of '53, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving--Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home."
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"Misery is a river of tears that whispers my name in a constant hiss."
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Personal Development

"People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura oflife which bears no relation to true immortality but through which theycontinue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. Itis as though they were traveling abroad."
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Personal Development

"All winter the acorns and red Maple leaf moldered in silence - in the same way grief is gnawing at me - slowly, imperceptibly... consuming..."
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Personal Development

"For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear."
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Personal Development

"The relatives of a suicide always take it in bad part that he did not remain alive out of consideration for the family dignity."
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Personal Development

"I called Isaac, who cursed life and the universe and God Himself and who said where are the goddamned trophies to break when you need them, and then I realized there was no one else to call, which was the saddest thing. The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Waters's death was Augustus Waters."
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Personal Development

"The effects of loss are acute, and unique to each individual. Not everyone mourns in the same way, but everyone mourns."
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Personal Development

"I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness."
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Personal Development

"There's some ill planet reigns:I must be patient till the heavens lookWith an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,I am not prone to weeping, as our sexCommonly are; the want of which vain dewPerchance shall dry your pities: but I haveThat honourable grief lodged here which burnsWorse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,With thoughts so qualified as your charitiesShall best instruct you, measure me; and soThe king's will be perform'd!"
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Personal Development

"Every one can master a grief but he that has it."
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"And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you."
Writing

"Good habits are worth being fanatical about."
Being

"You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven't done what I do. Most book reviewers haven't written 11 novels. Many of them haven't written one."
Enemy

"Half my life is an act of revision."
Life

"More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina."
Life

"I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second."
Reading

"No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him."
Family

"I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you're going to be in this business, if you're going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin."
Business

"There's no reason you should write any novel quickly."
Reason

"Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy."
Nostalgia
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