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"I have known many true connoisseurs, with excellent tastes that range across the humanities and the culinary arts--and they never fail to have a fatal effect on my self-esteem. When I find myself sitting at dinner next to someone who knows just as much about novels as I do but has somehow also found the mental space to adore and be knowledgeable about the opera, have strong opinions about the relative rankings of Renaissance painters, an encyclopedic knowledge of the English civil war, of French wines--I feel an anxiety that nudges beyond the envious into the existential. How did she find the time?"
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"Instead of breaking or cherry-picking the rules, many just follow the inner rules, which have been instilled during their lifetime and have subtly permeated their thinking. They value rules, as it offers the ravishment of a securing, ceremonial rhythm in life and it prevents them from breaking free from their cocoon, all the more because freedom can be so scaring and exhausting. ['When forgetting the rules of the game']"
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Personal Development
"Even if we have bad feelings about our past and it causes a sense of alienation, it belongs to our history. Its benchmarks are stored in the granary of our mind and crucial evaluations for the future cannot be made without consulting the archive of our memory. ['Not without the past']"
Author Name
Personal Development
"It has been said of dreams that they are a 'controlled psychosis,' or, put another way, a psychosis is a dream breaking through during waking hours."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to talking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Words don't have the power to hurt you, unless that person meant more to you than you are willing to confess."
Author Name
Personal Development
"People just can't cope with happiness."
Author Name
Personal Development
"At the end of the day, if pride is your greatest strength, turn it into vanity."
Author Name
Personal Development
"You are not your mind. You don't have to believe the lies it tells you about yourself."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Because of self-doubt, the fear of failure, or laziness, most people usually bite off way less than they can chew."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Sniffing glue is a homeless nonbeliever's prayer."
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Personal Development
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"And I'm not going to get any thinner or any younger, my ass is going to hit the ground, if it hasn't already--and I want to be with somebody who can still see me in here. I'm still in here. And I don't want to be resented or despised for changing...I'd rather be alone."
Self-Respect
"Now, how do the young prepare to meet the old? The same way the old prepare to meet the young: with a little condescension; with low expectation of the other's rationality; with the knowledge that the other will find what they say hard to understand, that it will go beyond them (not so much over the head as between the legs); and with the feeling that they must arrive with something the other will like, something suitable."
Generations
"She was the kind of person who never gave you enough time to miss her."
Relationship
"He had liked to listen to the exotic (to a Belsey) chatter of business and money and practical politics; to hear that Equality was a myth, and Multiculturalism was a fatuous dream; he thrilled at the suggestion that Art was a gift from God, blessing only a handful of masters, and most Literature merely a veil for poorly reasoned left-wing ideologies."
Ideology
"Cos if it's encyclopedias we've got enough, like, information... and if it's God, you've got the wrong house."
Atheism
"American houses...' she said, peering over her right shoulder and down the street. 'They always seem to believe that nobody ever loses anything, has lost anything. I find that very sad. Do you know what I mean?"
Loss
"They were smooth and bright, and their timing was wonderful, and they were young and hilarious. It was really something to see, they thought, and this was why they spoke loudly and gestured, inviting onlookers to admire."
Entertainment
"These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started... but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained."
Immigration
"It's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe."
Purity
"There was an inevitability about the road towards each other which encouraged meandering along the route."
Destiny
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