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Quotes by Novelist
"Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either."
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"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
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"In The Lime Twig I took two very young people and made them very old."
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"But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment."
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"We must believe in free will, we have no choice."
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"The silences after his last gasp were sung together by a blackbird. I lay there, my eyes unable to close. His were unable to open. I listed the places where I hurt, and how much. My loins felt ripped. Something inside had torn. There were seven places on my body where he had sunk his fangs into my skin and bitten. He'd dug his nails into my neck, and twisted my head to one side, and clawed my face. I hadn't made a noise. He had made all the noise for both of us. Had it hurt him?"
40
"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."
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"A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts."
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"I had turned away from the picture and was going back to the world where events move, men change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matter whether over mud or over stones."
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"Of course, bad marriages are so pervasive that they have invaded the faith community too."
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"My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have."
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"Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission."
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"Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell."
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"The devil take me, if I think anything but love to be the object of love."
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"But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. His one secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart."
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"Genius not only diagnoses the situation but supplies the answers."
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"Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present; its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the past!"
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"The country is in an extraordinary ferment."
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"Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly."
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"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."
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"You can't possibly know that you're going to be a writer!" Miss Frost said. "It's not a career choice."
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"The Browning love story? It is an ideal, all too rare, and yet I hardly think it strange. It would have been far stranger had the fates allowed those two brilliant passionate souls to beat themselves out in silence."
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"The last of the cherry blossom. On the tree, itturns ever more perfect. And when it's perfect, it falls. And then of course once it hits theground it gets all mushed up. So it's only absolutely perfect when it's falling through the air,this way and that, for the briefest time!.!.!."
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"Gatherings and, simultaneously, loneliness are the conditions of a writer's life."
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"He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit."
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"As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's.I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with most horses.I'm going to clean your stables. Won't that be great?Come inside! Eat you! Tasty half-blood!Usually this gets me VIP treatment in the equestrian world, not this time.Poseidon can come in, too! We will eat you both! Seafood! The other horses chimed in as they waded through the field."
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"Several excuses are always less convincing than one."
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"An average woman is in this superior to an average man-that she never instigates, only responds."
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"The sky was like ebony and the only illumination was the harsh white light of the central streetlamp, which cast shadows so hard it seemed you might cut yourself on them."
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