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317f705
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Sometimes in the company of others I find a disagreeable spirit of competitiveness kicks in and each person is shamed into spending rather more than he would have wished. This is a historically established syndrome, of course. One Magus going to Bethlehem would probably have sprung for a box of After Eights. Three Magi on the same trip found themselves laden with gold, frankincense and myrrh and bitterly comtemplating their overdrafts.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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cf9dddd
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The chef who cooks without a song on his lips cannot hope to infuse the right carefree improvisatory note into his art.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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2c45f07
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Racism. . . . fuelled by bitter assertions that no immigrant ever has the least respect for the environment in his adopted country because he never really believes it's his.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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bbfb8f4
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I also wish I'd been born with a clearly defined talent for something, or else stupid.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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3ea78d0
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A culinary triumph: the ingenious use of food as an offensive weapon.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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c164aaa
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I was simultaneously elated and depressed, a common enough state of mind these days when people are offered a great deal of money to do something repugnant.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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397bdc3
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Have you noticed how just trying to impose any sort of chronology on events makes it seem as though a lot of time has been occupied?
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writing
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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f6a518c
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First nights in strange places can determine how one sees them forever after.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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5d4b1aa
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We hang here, inquisitive carbon-based life forms, knowing that every atom of carbon now in our bodies was once in the interior of a star.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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367ae1d
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Well, finally it seems I've wasted my life. It's a hard age at which to drink spider-juice but I submit. Suddenly...I felt the flimsiness of all my substance, but not so much because I'd missed something. Quite the contrary -- it was because of something of which I've had all too much: myself. I doubt it ever occurs to people who are not cursed with this 'urge to create' (whatever that is) how, far from living in sublime communion with one'..
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James Hamilton-Paterson |
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cf003a3
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Nothing is avowed to exist nowadays unless it can be bought or sold or measured by scientists. Why should artists have to acknowledge the complete supremacy of materialism? Must everything mysterious be exploded or all unaccountable things explained away? And if so, what is gained? Plain men drudging in a world of plain things. That's not the world I know and it's one I've no wish to know.
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James Hamilton-Paterson |