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c7cb615
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Some acts of faith, I believe, have the power to grant us something infinitely wiser than we imagine
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Ursula Hegi |
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38ece2a
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About endings....unless we do them well, we have to keep repeating them.
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Ursula Hegi |
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b869f25
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Marrying a woman who was reckless must have been the ultimate reckless act, requiring a lifetime of balancing to keep both of them safe
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reckless
woman
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Ursula Hegi |
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0535abb
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Given a choice, she would rather be the one who was persecuted than the one doing the persecuting-- both had a terrible price to pay, but she would rather endure humiliation and fear than grow numb to what it was to be human.
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Ursula Hegi |
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db77b75
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Now the purpose of her stories had changed. She spun them to discover their meaning. In the telling, she found, you reached a point where you could not go back, where--as the stories changed--it transformed you, too.
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Ursula Hegi |
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1dc3de3
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much of what the church calls sin is simply being human.
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Ursula Hegi |
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f66df27
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A perfectly happy marriage? There is no such thing. There are strong marriages that can survive problems, but happiness is such a brief condition, interrupted by difficulties and plain, boring routine.
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Ursula Hegi |
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50c0a54
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The absence of doubt will turn humans into beasts.
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Ursula Hegi |
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d0f2ead
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High in the hazy sky, the snowfkakes looked tiny and all alike, but as they drifted past the narrow window of the sewing room, all were unique - long or round or triangular - as if they'd borrowed their shapes from the clouds they'd come from.
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life-in-small-german-town
rise-of-nazis
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Ursula Hegi |
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9211200
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And what she wanted more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - differences in size and race and belief....
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Ursula Hegi |
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f30316d
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She also told me it wore down her spirit to live in the desert landscape that was parched by midsummer, to plant a garden each spring and struggle to keep it alive past July.
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Ursula Hegi |
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ad45fb9
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Everyone does it." "But no one talks about it," Gloria said. "About the different levels of skill involved. You have to practice before you become a great masturbator."
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Ursula Hegi |
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de59d45
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I think . . . you should have children, John." At least he's no longer talking about bugs. "I'm too young, Dad." "It's the most important thing . . . I've done in . . . my life."
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Ursula Hegi |
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5822c60
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If I look closely, I can almost see myself floating in my mother's palm. Yet, when I shut my eyes, I find a different image of my mother releasing me as we dance in the storm and twirl in separate circles that cause the water to ripple from us in widening rings which merge in one ebbing bracelet of waves where the borders of the quarry meet the water, far from the center where my mother and I continue to spin our bodies in the radiant sheen..
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floating
lightning
mother
mother-s-palm
mothers-and-daughters
quarry
spin
twirl
water
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Ursula Hegi |
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9da84a5
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She fought him by reminding herself what her father had said to Emil Hesping--that they lived in a country where believing had taken the place of knowing.
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Ursula Hegi |
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4a55722
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And what she hated more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - no more differences in size and belief- differences that became justification for destruction.
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Ursula Hegi |
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825d06a
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Deine Anpassungsfaheigkeit--Your ability to adapt," her husband said, "is far more dangerous to you than any of them will ever be. You'll keep adapting and adapting until nothing is left."
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Ursula Hegi |
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f5b8fe5
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And throughout all, Trudi wove the assurance...that - once someone had been in your life - you could keep that person there despite the agony of loss, as long as you had faith that you could bring the sum of all your hours together in one shining moment.
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Ursula Hegi |
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114bc03
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said, "but the school board--" He opened his arms in a helpless sweep. "If I can help . . ." The following Wednesday the bells of the chapel did not ring, and when the old women" --
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Ursula Hegi |
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bc43058
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it only occurred to me much later that the summer I was fourteen I had saved a life--not the life of a stranger as I had imagined--but the life I had taken for granted and which, in the years to come, I would take for granted again.
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Ursula Hegi |
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7568970
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We Germans have a history of sacrificing everything for one strong leader," her father had said. "It's our fear of chaos."
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Ursula Hegi |
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2cd14d6
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And yet, just because a story was a certain way didn't mean it would always be like that: stories took their old shape with them and fused it with the new shape. She didn't understand yet how all the tangles of their lives would sort themselves out in her story, but she supposed it would be like raking: not every bit of earth would be untangled at once.
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Ursula Hegi |
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06a76d6
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With the stories of people she'd known since her childhood it was like that: one incident in their lives might come to an ending, but others would lead into new veins, and what was fascinating was to look at the whole of it and discern a pattern, a way of being, that had shaped those passages.
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Ursula Hegi |
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357cf58
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These are things," Trudi's father told her long before she was old enough for confession, "that the church calls sins, but they are part of being human. And those we need to embrace. The most important thing--" He paused. "--is to be kind."
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Ursula Hegi |
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6bf1325
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Because of the people in history, Trudi felt a far stronger link than ever before to the people in her town, and from all this grew new stories, which she told to Eva and her father, and to Frau Abramowitz who listened to every word and sighed, "Trudi, you and your splendid imagination."
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Ursula Hegi |
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bb9348f
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Trudi's gift lay in knowing. Knowing the words that named the thoughts inside people's minds, the words that masked the fears and secrets inside their hearts. To force their secrets to the surface like water farts and let them rip through the silence. They called her a snoop, a meddler. But even though she was more inconvenient to them than ever before, they kept coming back--to borrow books, they liked to believe--yet, what they really cam..
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Ursula Hegi |
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bc8ee02
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The risk her stories posed to others--and to herself--was more subtle. When she was younger, she had used secrets as if they were currency, but she'd found out how secrets could use her instead by becoming stronger than she. It happened whenever she couldn't stay away from a secret--drawn to it the way Georg Weiler was drawn to the bottle--though she sensed it would be better for her not to know.
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Ursula Hegi |
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7263179
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He didn't know how to speak properly, how to walk properly, how to comb his hair, and she felt embarrassed for him as he shouted about restoring jobs and national honor, about a better and splendid Germany. The mob applauded, shouted. Did people really believe that he wanted what was best for Germany?
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Ursula Hegi |
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7b8f484
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Carefully, the girl skimmed her fingers across her mother's knee. It was smooth; the skin had closed across the tiny wounds like the surface of the river after you toss stones into the waves. Only you knew they were there. Unless you told.
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Ursula Hegi |
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f656e30
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These are thing," Trudi's father told her long before she was old enough for confession, "that the church call sins, but they are part of being human. And those we need to embrace. The most important thing--" He paused. "--is to be kind."
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Ursula Hegi |
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689a591
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Their train speeds through the cities and crosses rivers until it reaches Paris. They leave the station, their arms around each other, and walk to the Jardin des Plantes where the panther paces the length of his cage. The young teacher nods as Hannelore Beier reaches into the cage, and strokes the animal's magnificent neck. The panther arches his back. A curtain lifts from his pupils as the pastor's sister slides aside the bolt that has kep..
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jardin-des-plantes
panther
rilke
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Ursula Hegi |
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6c62d21
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Only a few people in Burgdorf had read Mein Kampf, and many thought that all this talk about Rssenreinheit-purity of the race-was ludicrous and impossible to enforce. Yet the long training in obedience to elders, government, and church made it difficult-even for those who considered the views of the Nazis dishonorable-to give voice to their misgivings. And so they kept hushed, yielding to each new indignity while they waited for the Nazis a..
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Ursula Hegi |
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0fe1b52
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It was the kind of silence that fills you with light and makes you believe you can do anything you want.
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Ursula Hegi |