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09b1a26
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I think about how truly interesting and odd it is that when a woman marries, traditionally she loses her name, becoming absorbed by the husband's family name - she is in effect lost, evaporated from all records under her maiden name. I finally understand the anger behind feminism - the idea that as a woman you are property to be conveyed between your father and your husband, but never an individual who exists independently. And on the flip ..
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A.M. Homes |
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7a2a623
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Sometimes you can do things for others that you can't do for yourself.
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A.M. Homes |
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97e3629
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I liked the fact she understood how we all have little secret habits that seem normal enough to us, but which we know better than to mention out loud.
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A.M. Homes |
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9d11be0
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I'm nothing you can catch now. I am black powder, I am singe, I am the bomb that bursts the night.
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A.M. Homes |
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8d0b54c
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There is a world out there, so new, so random and disassociated that it puts us all in danger. We talk online, we 'friend' each other when we don't know who we are really talking to - we fuck strangers. We mistake almost anything for a relationship, a community of sorts, and yet, when we are with our families, in our communities, we are clueless, we short-circuit and immediately dive back into the digitized version - it is easier, because w..
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technology
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A.M. Homes |
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8cc669e
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I'm feeling how profoundly my family disappointed me and in the end how I retreated, how I became nothing, because that was much less risky than attempting to be something, to be anything in the face of such contempt.
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A.M. Homes |
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c054a49
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We're all good when we want to be, otherwise we're fucking animals. There's no VIP room in reality, and there is no reality in this city. You can't Google the answers. People talke about being on the ride of your life--THIS IS YOUR LIFE. Whatever you need to know, you already know. Imagine what it is to be in another country, another landscape--heat, insects, fear. Imagine watching someone right in front of you trip on a wire, step on a min..
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A.M. Homes |
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2ea32db
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How can I tell anyone that there has always lived within me a rusty sense of disgust-a dull, brackish water that I suspect is my soul?
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soul
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A.M. Homes |
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9748836
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I'm trying to find some piece of myself that is truly me, a part that I would be willing to wear like a jewel around my neck.
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A.M. Homes |
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4e88e0c
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What does 'stuck' mean?" "It means I should make some big decision, I should do some enormous thing. And I can't do anything. I can't stand my life, and I can't change it." "Maybe it's not an enormous thing," he says. "Maybe you have to do one small thing and then another small thing."
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life
stuck-in-a-rut
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A.M. Homes |
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6b93366
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My mind leaps to my theory about presidents - that there are two kinds, ones who have a lot of sex and the others who start wars. In short - and don't quote me, because this is an incomplete expression of a more complex premise - I believe blow jobs prevent war.
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A.M. Homes |
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0620f98
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Suffering is normal. Pain is normal, it is part of life... What is its texture, the weight of our suffering? What is its meaning? Begin by touching it, by coming close to it, accepting it: Hello, suffering, I am here with you. I am beside you, one with you, I am you. I am suffering.
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pain
suffering
self-help
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A.M. Homes |
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dabb585
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Driving a Bentley to Target- only in LA does this make sense.
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A.M. Homes |
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cd7bbc2
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Was this the big one or was this the small tremor, the warning? Does it get better - does the sensation of being in a dream underwater go away?
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wonder
reality
health
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A.M. Homes |
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1b86b58
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There is a sky and trees, a high wire fence, a long road, and at the end of it you are there, waiting for me. So glad to see you, I say, misses you so much, thought about you ever day.
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A.M. Homes |
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81547bc
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Silly bug, fly on the wall, our first fight and how quickly we are over it. Of course I don't hate you, dearest, beloved, most cherished, I owe you everything.
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A.M. Homes |
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b40b797
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Tell me about your day, your routine, and what you did at the drugstore when the dumb little girl charged you five cents instead of five dollars. Did you speak up? Are you all so lily-white? The harder it gets to be safe and secure, to trust, to find love and understanding--the more you feel entitled, allowed, even encouraged, to cheat, to lie, to steal, and then later, even to kill. That you're just beginning to feel it now only means you ..
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A.M. Homes |
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e8cfbfd
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He lay there realizing how thoroughly he'd removed himself from the world or obligations, how stupidly independent he'd become: he needed no one, knew no one, was not a part of anyone's life. He'd so thoroughly removed himself from the world of dependencies and obligations, he wasn't sure he still existed.
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A.M. Homes |
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4a91c72
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I believe in staying open to possibility. What is the point of not believing, closing the door? Just leave it open, see what comes in.
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A.M. Homes |
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1acf1a5
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You are your own beginning. Every day, every hour, every minute, you start again. There is no point wishing you were someone else, you are who you are--start there.
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change
life
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A.M. Homes |
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c50e953
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Alice, I hand you her name gently, suggesting that if you hold it, carefully as I do, pressed close to the heart, you might at the end of this understand how confusing the beating of two such similar hearts can be and how one finally had to stop.
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A.M. Homes |
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7ee6f5f
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He looked at Richard and the donut with great intensity, as if this were the donut that would fix Richard, as if there were certain donuts that were better for certain ailments, as if a donut could have curative powers.
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A.M. Homes |
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95ac3f1
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We're all good when we want to be, otherwise we're fucking animals. There is no VIP room in reality, and there is no reality in this city. You can't Google the answers. People talk about being on the ride of your life -THIS IS YOUR LIFE." He takes a breath. "Whatever it is you need to know, you already know. Imagine what it is to be in another country, another landscape...tell me why anyone every thought this was a good idea."
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A.M. Homes |
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374f324
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Can I ask you, what is your relationship to God?" "Limited," I say. "Limited with the exception of spontaneous prayer in times of distress."
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humour
religion
god
prayers
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A.M. Homes |
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7e0a3f6
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Lillian comes out of the kitchen carrying an artefact, the blue metal tin marked Danish Butter Cookies that if I didn't know better I would swear had been in the family for generations - when the Jews left Egypt, they took with them the tins of Danish Butter Cookies. And tins, which as best as I could tell never included Danish Butter Cookies, traveled from house to house, but always, always found their way back to Lillian.
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A.M. Homes |
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7824a0b
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Today's the day. The clock is ticking. I have been summoned to speak. I go before the committee with a chance to exonerate myself, to extricate, or at least explain the debacle that has become my life. A statement, a simple speech, a song and dance that will set them straight, an incandescent incantation, a charming presentation, a shoe of sorts, the show of shows, it's the only chance I've got. My appeal must be appealing, not entirely re..
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A.M. Homes |
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d89798d
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The criminal element is contained - held under lock and key - and still it happens. How could it go one without me (us) - is that too narcissistic a mind? What I'm getting at is that, with so many of us locked up, you'd think it would stop. That it continues means that it is you and not me. Tell me about your day, your routine, and what you did at the drugstore when the dumb little girl charged you five cents instead of five dollars. Did yo..
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A.M. Homes |