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3b68fb4
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We're taught to expect unconditional love from our parents, but I think it is more the gift our children give us. It's they who love us helplessly, no matter what or who we are.
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parents-and-children
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Kathryn Harrison |
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22b99f8
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There must be many of us whose lives have been divided into a before and after, with an accident, a death, a crime, a crisis, some moment or year or relationship that came between and changed everything. I want to see how your life moved forward from that point of division.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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4c8d23d
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My days are as long as despair can make them.
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despair
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Kathryn Harrison |
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c46fdd8
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The dizzy rapture of starving. The power of needing nothing. By force of will I make myself the impossible sprite who lives on air, on water, on purity.
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kathryn-harrison
the-kiss
memoir
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Kathryn Harrison |
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519f79a
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We are, all of us, molded and remolded by those who have loved us, and though that love may pass, we remain none the less their work--a work that very likely they do not recognize, and which is never exactly what they intended. --Francois Mauriac, The Desert of Love
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Kathryn Harrison |
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e2ef385
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If complete enlightenment demands relinquishing the self, then complete enlightenment implies the acceptance of mortality. Not that there isn't more to being enlightened than accepting that our lives are brief and end when we did. But I do think it's a requirement.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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9868823
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I don't go to graduate school. Instead, I move to New York, the city where I naively imagine writers must go.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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fbc4b09
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Someday a sentence will come to me, a magic sentence that will undo all that is wrong and make everything right. But until that sentence comes, I say nothing.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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9f20ec7
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And now you'll never be able to have anyone else, because you won't be able to keep our secret. You'll tell whoever it is, and once he knows, he'll leave you.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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cc728f6
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Who's normal? Normal is a mathematical concept. It has no bearing on human personality or relationships.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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28539c4
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The road always stretches endlessly ahead and behind us, so that we are out of time as well as out of place.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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cc95928
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The three of us spend much of our week together at art museums and botanic gardens and other tourist attractions. We are drawn to these places of silent staring and confused, enervated wandering because they make us seem and feel less like freaks as we stare in speechless shock at one another.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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4b87acf
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Prophecy, annunciation, virginity. A hidden sword, an angel bearing a crown of jewels. An army of knights, a cloud of butterflies, a phallic arrow that missed its mark. A tower cell, an evil bishop, a king's betrayal. A heart that would not burn, a dove that flew from the flames that failed to dispatch that immortal heart.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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9d4e0a5
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The 1643 Martyrologie des chevaliers (Martyrology of knights)
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Kathryn Harrison |
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e099544
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Guillaume Gruel, Richemont's personal chronicler, recorded the dialogue from his employer's perspective with an evident taste for the dashing. "Joan, it has been said that you wish to fight with me. I do not know if you are from God or not. If you are from God, I do not fear you because God knows my good will. If you are from the devil, I fear you even less."
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Kathryn Harrison |
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7f724f5
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Catharism placed no value on one sex over the other; not only did it attract women as converts, but it invited them into the clergy.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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6698be1
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It's terrible to live believing that everything you do is of the utmost importance.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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ff80fb9
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Tears water our eyes. "Remember," mom soothes, "like the beautiful blooms beneath the weeds, Nana is still Nana underneath." --
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alzheimer-s-disease
alzheimers
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Kathryn Harrison |
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4eeb523
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Nights, in my room, I turn the handle of my grandfather's old-fashioned razor to release the blade from under its stainless steel cover. I trace the sharp edge over my arm, press it into places where a scratch might go unnoticed. It's not so much a desire for punishment as for manageable pain, bleeding that can be stanched.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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efaf4ea
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But as soon as she came here . . . she knew that she had lost what she wanted, that the life she had as a girl was the one she desired always, that she had no need of a prince, but only her dreams of a prince.
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Kathryn Harrison |
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6dc82fd
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The eyes those silent tongues of love. --CERVANTES
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Kathryn Harrison |