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6c44a7b
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Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.
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Jess Walter |
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a92482f
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A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea." "That's only three." Alvis finished his wine. "You have to do disappointment twice."
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Jess Walter |
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3eade25
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His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.
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Jess Walter |
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4385a16
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This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.
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Jess Walter |
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9dd784d
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I think so, too. I know I felt that way. For years. It was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.
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Jess Walter |
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bed3350
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And even if they don't find what they're looking for, isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?
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Jess Walter |
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b5f038c
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All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is ; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing:
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stories
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Jess Walter |
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cc9c03d
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What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?
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widowhood
death-of-a-loved-one
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Jess Walter |
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b77745a
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Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life--not so much with the woman, whom he didn't even know, but with the moment.
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Jess Walter |
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d020428
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But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.
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Jess Walter |
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337ec16
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He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.
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Jess Walter |
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cd4c555
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Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.
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life
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Jess Walter |
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9f31a04
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No one gets to tell you what your life means!
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Jess Walter |
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d7a93e7
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But aren't all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos-- we know what's out there. It's what that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet lags-- four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon-- but true quests aren't measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope. There are only t..
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Jess Walter |
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543f399
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the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.
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Jess Walter |
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e8bd415
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Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.
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Jess Walter |
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4c7ba8c
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And because he felt like he might burst open and because he lacked the dexterity in English to say all that he was thinking--how in his estimation, the more you lived the more regret and longing you suffered, that life was a glorious catastrophe--Pasquale Tursi said, only, "Yes."
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Jess Walter |
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8bda5a8
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What business does memory have with time?
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time
memory
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Jess Walter |
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813a479
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Stories are bulls. Writers come of age full of vigor, and they feel the need to drive the old stories from the herd. One bull rules the herd awhile but then he loses his vigor and the young bulls take over. Stories are nations, empires. They can last as long as ancient Rome or as short as the Third Reich. Story-nations rise and decline. Governments change, trends rise, and they go on conquering their neighbors. Stories are people. I'm a st..
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Jess Walter |
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857b4c8
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He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.
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right-and-wrong
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Jess Walter |
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e5d81d9
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Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing. Use 'beautiful' to describe a sandwich and the word means nothing. Since the war, there is no more room for inflated language. Words and feelings are small now - clear and precise. Humble like dreams.
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Jess Walter |
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d95f9a7
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He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.
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Jess Walter |
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cd53424
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At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?
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Jess Walter |
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ce68803
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All we have is the story we tell.
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Jess Walter |
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6785c58
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Who isn't crazy sometimes? Who hasn't driven around a block hoping a certain person will come out; who hasn't haunted a certain coffee shop, or stared obsessively at an old picture; who hasn't toiled over every word in a letter, taken four hours to write a two-sentence email, watched the phone praying it will ring; who doesn't lay awake at night sick with the image of her sleeping with someone else?
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Jess Walter |
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31e695d
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Weren't movies his generation's faith anyway- its true religion? Wasn't the theatre our temple, the one place we enter separately but emerge from two hours later together, with the same experience, same guided emotions, same moral? A million schools taught ten million curricula, a million churches featured ten thousand sects with a billion sermons- but the same movie showed in every mall in the country. And we all saw it. That summer, the o..
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Jess Walter |
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170943d
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This is a love story," Michael Dean says, "but really what isn't? Doesn't the detective love the mystery or the chase, or the nosey female reporter who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely, the serial murder loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets, or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice-trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck and the competing chefs go crazy ..
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zombie
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Jess Walter |
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9ab7037
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There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant -- sail for Asia and stumble on America -- and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.
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Jess Walter |
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7fab08b
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Maybe every couple lived in the gaps between conversations, unable to say the important things for fear they had already been said, or couldn't be said; maybe every relationship started over every time two people came together.
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Jess Walter |
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cb5ffe1
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There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact. --Milan Kundera
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Jess Walter |
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ff98551
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He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.
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perception
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Jess Walter |
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6cb4b1c
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Be confident and the world responds to your confidence, rewards your faith.
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Jess Walter |
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85d58db
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Maybe it's ALWAYS the end of the world. Maybe you're alive for a while, and then you realize you're going to die, and that's such an insane thing to comprehend, you look around for answers and the only answer is that the world must die with you. Sure, the world seems crazy now. But wouldn't it seem just as crazy if you were alive when they sacrificed peasants, when people were born into slavery, when they killed first-born sons, crucified p..
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end-of-the-world
dystopia
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Jess Walter |
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c6e317e
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If London was an alien city, Edinburgh was another planet
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london
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Jess Walter |
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8ab0d9b
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The whole world is sick...we've all got this pathetic need to be seen. We're a bunch of fucking toddlers trying to get attention.
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Jess Walter |
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226c26b
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The movie I was working on, "Cleopatra", it's about how destructive a force love can be. But maybe that's what every story is about."
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Jess Walter |
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aad541d
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What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough?
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life
inspirational
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Jess Walter |
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32ca477
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This reminded him of Alvis Bender's contention that stories were like nations - Italy, a great epic poem, Britain, a thick novel, America, a brash motion picture in technicolor...
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Jess Walter |
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4f8bd81
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Yes, what is it like? Certainly not like she dreamed. But maybe that's okay. We want what we want. At home, she works herself into a frenzy worrying about what she isn't--and perhaps loses track of just where she is.
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wants
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Jess Walter |
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25bb5ee
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Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. These are first-person memories--I memories. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.
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Jess Walter |
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f51d2d2
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She saw death as just another wedding she wasn't invited to.
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Jess Walter |
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040058f
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And while his mother's lecture had gone over his seven-year-old head, Pasquale saw now what she meant--how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.
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life-lessons
desires
intentions
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Jess Walter |
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d9072fa
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And if a moment exists only in one's perception anyway, then perhaps the rush of feeling he has now is THE MOMENT, and not merely its shadow.
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Jess Walter |
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67fdb49
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To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can't afford, and when they're caught in the arms of the wrong person, pitch unlikely explanations. Hospitals pitch birthing centers, daycares pitch love, high schools pitch success . . . car dealerships pitch luxury, counselors self-esteem, masseuses happy endings, cemeteries eternal rest . . . It's endless, the pitching--endless, exhilarating,..
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Jess Walter |