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ca49f46
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A person comes into the world with a fist-and a grasp. Yes, we are built to fight one another, but also to embrace. How cleverly we are created.
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Rachel Simon |
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058c687
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There were two kinds of students who liked the library: those who devoured one book after another and those who savored the same book repeatedly. Now she understood those rereaders differently ... she realized it was not the rereading that led to fresh insights. It was the rereader-- because when a person is changing inside, there are inevitably new things to see.
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reading
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Rachel Simon |
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636bd42
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There are two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn't do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn't what you'd originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.
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Rachel Simon |
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213f1de
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Silence made space for other people's words, which was important for those who needed to be listened to.
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words
silence
love
listened
rachel-simon
the-story-of-beautiful-girl
word
listening
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Rachel Simon |
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a1178f4
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A rainy day can actually be a very important day. And a small hope isn't really small if it makes a lost hope less sad.
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Rachel Simon |
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4e70a37
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Happiness, I have grasped, is a destination, like strawberry Fields. Once you find the way in, there you are, and you'll never feel low again.
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Rachel Simon |
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d85d7d0
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She felt so lovely in his hands. She felt so loved in his eyes.
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Rachel Simon |
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a8bc46c
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How many other lives are hidden, and hearts are seeking? How many would give anything in the world to be held by the person they love?
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Rachel Simon |
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c7483dd
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A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.
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Rachel Simon |
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900a579
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she realized it was not the rereading that led to fresh insights. It was the rereader--because when a person is changing inside, there are inevitably new things to see
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Rachel Simon |
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603f3b1
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Sometimes you think you know what you want, she said, hugging her children, until you see how much more you can have.
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Rachel Simon |
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b0f918a
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she had wondered which was worse: the sudden good-bye you know is a good-bye or the long good-bye you have to guess.
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sadness-love
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Rachel Simon |
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9f2b356
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He thought that maybe when you're making your way forward into your life, it just looks higgledy-piggledy, the way, if you were a fly walking across one of Beautiful Girl's drawings all you'd be able to see was green, then blue, then yellow. Only if you got in the air before the swat came down would you see the colors belonged to a big drawing, with the green for this part of the picture, the blue and yellow for others, every color being ju..
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Rachel Simon |
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c58a7f9
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And Lynnie understood. There were two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn't do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn't what you'd originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad. p 313 "The sky was crying outside, and as she watched the drops come down, she thought: A rainy day can actually be a very impo..
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Rachel Simon |
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fb23b54
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Maybe we are all Beths, boarding other people's life journeys, or letting them hop aboard ours. For a while we ride together. A few minutes, a few miles. Companions on the road, sharing our air and our view, our feet swaying to the same beat. Then you get off at your stop, or I get off at mine. Unless we decide to stay on longer together. p 251
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Rachel Simon |
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f568eec
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she's sad a lot. She's sad in the way Laura wears glasses and Max has freckles and Beth is retarded. There's no reason, it's just the way it is.
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Rachel Simon |
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f3cf571
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Follow your inclination. It will take you to the thoughts you'd never known you'd had.
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Rachel Simon |
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c2cefd7
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Well, ain't that just the way of the world. Everything come to an end, whether you wants it to or not. All that nature out there: over. The Snare: dead and gone. Even a love that make a man giddy and romantic, that give him a hope and joy he never known, that brave him into taking a slingshot to the impossible and bringing it almost complete to its knees -- even a love like that come to an end. Life just ashes to ashes and dust to dust. And..
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Rachel Simon |
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248c5b8
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But never had come first.
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Rachel Simon |
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2f7ee81
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Yes, we can all cart our fractured selves along as we move through our lives. But we can choose whether we keep plodding along the same rutted road, or take a turn we'd never thought was ours to take.
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Rachel Simon |
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46e44f7
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Then," he says, "as my mind got functioning, everything was just beautiful. There was no right or wrong feeling, no social pressure. I believe that's what heaven's going to be like..." p 55" --
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Rachel Simon |
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08767cd
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When change happened to an individual, it happened to everyone around her - sometimes in ways she wished for, though sometimes in ways she wished against" Lynnie p 228-229"
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Rachel Simon |
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0a1f1e7
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How many others are out there? How many other lives are hidden, and hearts are seeking? How many would give anything in the world to be held by the person they love?
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love
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Rachel Simon |
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511e705
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He could not talk himself out of pain any longer. He had no one to be strong for. So finally, he cried. He cried with deep sobs, head bent to the ground, palms pressed to his eyes. He cried so hard that sorrow rushed out of his face. He cried until he felt like the sea.
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Rachel Simon |
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b20d22a
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So you never know when you can get through. p 179 Jack the Bus Driver talking about helping a woman on the bus who was an alcoholic
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Rachel Simon |
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bd0c1e4
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But those were only the headlines. The more important stories lay deep inside... p 292
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Rachel Simon |
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194ba53
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The reactions of others were actually another lesson she'd learned about change. When change happened to an individual, it happened to everyone around her - sometimes in ways she wished for, though sometimes in ways she wished against.
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Rachel Simon |
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f31a9af
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I realize, as the tightness yields in my shoulders and hips and feet, that Beth might well have wanted me to meet her drivers because I needed them, too." p 167"
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Rachel Simon |
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542fa22
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Martha giggled; the baby was holding her. Astounding. A person comes into the world with a fist--and a grasp, she thought. Yes, we are built to fight one another, but also to embrace. How cleverly we are created.
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Rachel Simon |
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e395b2c
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Martha sat back. She felt her chest heaving, and in the silence that followed, she looked into Julia's eyes and saw, past the challenging stance, the self-loathing, the effects of the wine, Lynnie. And Martha knew, as she hadn't until now, why she couldn't tell Julia the whole story. It wasn't only because Martha wanted to restrain herself from teaching Julia a harsh lesson or because she wanted Julia to be grateful for her sacrifices. It w..
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Rachel Simon |
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23113ec
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There were two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn't do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn't what you'd originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.
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Rachel Simon |
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8a561e4
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And she'd felt an opening in her chest where she hadn't known anything was closed.
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Rachel Simon |
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315b142
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Looking back in time was very exciting to me. But looking forward is more challenging--nothing unfolds as you anticipate, and it's the small things, not the huge geologic shifts, that make or break you.
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Rachel Simon |
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e959cab
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Raising kids isn't carpentry," he said "Forget measuring twice and cutting once, You measure over and over everyday"
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Rachel Simon |
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80ec3d6
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Maybe this is how it goes, I think, watching Beth and Melanie, remembering the people I have loved, and the ones I wish I hadn't lost. Maybe we are all Beths, boarding other people's life journeys, or letting them hop aboard ours. For a while we ride together. A few minutes, a few miles. Companions on the road, sharing our air and our view, our feet swaying to the same beat. Then you get off at your stop, or I get off at mine. Unless we dec..
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Rachel Simon |
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c2c074a
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Follow your inclination. It will take you to thoughts you'd never know you'd had
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Rachel Simon |
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8a12592
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not thinking of what I can get, but thinking of what I can give
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Rachel Simon |
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c77d293
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Ah, look at that sunrise!" Tim says at the first stoplight, lifting his arms toward the windshield. "Four billion sunrises, over the dinosaurs, the pharaohs, and now ours today. And no one's ever the same. Isn't it just the most remarkable thing? Each day is fresh and unique, yet each is also a link to every dawn all the way back to the Precambrian."
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Rachel Simon |
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f0f8ab3
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She's sad in the way Laura wears glasses and Max has freckles and Beth is retarded. There's no reason, it's just the way it is.
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Rachel Simon |
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12b4e32
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I'm rent! I'm rent!" as if she were hurling a challenge with all her might beyond the limits of the sky." --
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Rachel Simon |
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734324e
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S]he spontaneously threw back her head and trumpeted,I'm rent! I'm rent!" as if she were hurling a challenge with all her might beyond the limits of the sky."
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Rachel Simon |
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dc8e6c2
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At the landing, Mommy turns to us and says, "Let's let the puppy go pish," so she opens the door and he scoots into the snow outside."
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Rachel Simon |
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5eec592
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Just because I am not a saint does not mean that I am a demon
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Rachel Simon |
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978fdaa
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In the Big Apple, you get people like Beth on every bus, and nobody would say a word. You get races mixing, and it's no big deal. Old people, young people, everyone keeps their mouth shut. There's just more tolerance there.
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Rachel Simon |