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1c626e9
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There is no good reason. Don't waste your life waiting for good reasons...You'll wait and wait.
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Susan Minot |
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ab6ffd0
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She thought of how much people changed you. It was the opposite of what you always heard, that no one could change a person. It wasn't true. It was only through other people that one ever did change.
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Susan Minot |
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447cfd7
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Boy poison - a boy's kisses were like a poison, which infected you and after you were exposed you craved more, like an addict.
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Susan Minot |
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96f42fb
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After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life. She did not even know the whole of it! Perhaps she should have written some of it down...but really what would have been the point in that? Everything passed, she would too. This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with this new clarity the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had.
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Susan Minot |
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0e4b0d8
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Hope is a terrible thing, she said. Is it? Yes, it keep you living in another place, a place which doesn't exist. For some people it's better than where they are. For many it's a relief. From life, she said. A relief from life? Is that living? Some people don't have a choice. No and that's awful for them. Hope is better than misery, he said. Or despair. Hope belongs in the same box as despair. Hope is not so bad, he said. At least despair h..
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Susan Minot |
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b587df6
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She] felt as if she were both a stranger to herself and more herself than she'd ever been.
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Susan Minot |
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dd42d5e
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Did people ever stop changing? They surprised you with fresh pain. Sometimes they surprised you with happiness, but the pain was the sharper surprise. There was no way to protect yourself from it. People could always change and always hurt you. Of course it went in the other direction too, you could hurt them when you didn't intend it and that too was out of your control.
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Susan Minot |
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9c104df
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Starkly in an instant she saw herself as she really was-alone in a wood standing among blue shadows with no sounds and the air a sort of black ice. She had no coat. All the people she'd known had forgotten her. Her mother, biting off thread between her teeth, couldn't hear her, and her father with his eyes turned sorrowfully inward did not see her. They never had. Those she loved did not need her. Lila and Carl danced together in a bubble. ..
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Susan Minot |
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24b082f
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it occurred to her how some people continued through no design of one's own to be in one's life while others might initially enter in a sort of blaze and seem to change everything but then might not stay around.
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Susan Minot |
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266f1b2
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She was pulling a rope out of the water and knew it was coming to the end when the barnacles started to appear and they became more think and clustered. Then it was strangely peaceful and the sound was turned off. She stood at the bow of a ship. If only she could have stood this way above the water and really breathed and let the waves go by like pages being turned and watched everything more closely and chosen things more carefully then sh..
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Susan Minot |
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3b86b4c
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I learned that if you love a boy you are o longer free. The boy may become more important than your own self and if it is so, you will find trouble there. The first time you are hurt in your heart, you do not forget the lesson. It stays forever.
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Susan Minot |
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bfd4b43
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He had made his decision. Later in life Ann would learn that when certain men made decisions no matter how much it might torture them afterwards they would stick with their decision. Men, she learned, would rather suffer than change their minds or their habits. They could develop elaborate systems for containing pain, sometimes so successful they would remain completely unaware of the vastness of the pain they possessed.
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pain
men
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Susan Minot |
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ef153cc
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All her life she'd listened to talk, life was full of talk. People said things, true and interesting things and ridiculous things. Her father used to say they talked too much. There was much to say, she had said her share. How else was one to know a thing except by naming it? But words now fell so far from where life was. Words fell on a distant shore. It turned out there were other tracks on which life registered where things weren't ackno..
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Susan Minot |
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594543a
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Where were you all this time? she said. Where have you been? I guess far away. Yes you were. Too far away. They sat in silence. You know you frightened me a little, she said. At the beginning. No. You did. He smiled at that. You looked as if you didnt anyone, she said.
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Susan Minot |
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373ace3
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A free spirit's just an idiot who doesn't want to face reality.
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Susan Minot |
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557e85c
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Unless you were high up in a building or happened to glimpse it at the end of one of the big avenues going east-west, all you knew of the sunset was a darkening in the air. No wonder people in New York were so unbalanced. They were totally untouched by the rhythms of nature. You were only aware of nature when something extreme happened, like a snowstorm or heatwave.
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Susan Minot |
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ff10cfe
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So many things in this world were cracked and sad, and still a glowing showed through and moments came when everything was lit and love happened. Every tree stood where it belonged, each bird had perfect feathers folded against its tiny body, each holding a heart beating madly. Life was a vibration of light and dark, and love illuminated that life. Then darkness descended and your heart was ripped apart. So that was part of it, a requiremen..
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Susan Minot |
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510f724
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When a person you love moves by you with flat eyes that will not see you, it is a shock to believe it.
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Susan Minot |
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54633e8
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Tinhas ar de quem nao precisava de ninguem, disse ela. Mas sao esses os que mais precisam, retorquiu ele. Entao nao sabes disso? Agora ja sei, disse ela. Tarde de mais. O saber nunca vem tarde de mais!, exclamou ele. Talvez nao, respondeu ela. Mas pode vir tarde de mais para nos servir para alguma coisa.
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Susan Minot |
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0343572
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For a girl, with each boy it's as though a petal gets plucked each time.
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Susan Minot |
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e7a1d23
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It was the opposite of what you always heard, that no one could change a person. It wasn't true. It was only through other people that one ever did change.
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Susan Minot |
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13f3cee
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She rolled herself back so she wouldn't leave anything out. Sometimes time spread out like ink in water but it also had an order and one thing could not come without the other coming first.
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Susan Minot |
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3770be0
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Who ever said that one got what one wanted. It was a small thing compared to... well, to a lot of things. She'd gotten over things before none like this she'd left things behind this was more she couldn't speak of it this was the first thing only hers she would have to forget. It was too great it was her heart. She couldn't explain and to try and to fail would be worse. It pressed in her. Life simply went on. He was not the only man. Her he..
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Susan Minot |
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5bb2228
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Hope is better than misery, he said. Or despair. Hope belongs in the same box as despair. Hope is not so bad, he said. At least despair has truth to it.
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Susan Minot |
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99a6cf2
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The odd feeling comes which you know may not be right but which still inhabits you: I belong below people.
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Susan Minot |
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d8d54b2
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Most people when you get up close are not more in focus, but less.
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Susan Minot |
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2ed2e89
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Her life had not been long enough for her to know the whole of herself, it had not been long enough or wide.
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Susan Minot |