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21a4992
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Cleverness is a false presumption', Doc had explained, 'it is like being a natural skater, you are so busy doing tricks to impress that you do not see where the thin ice is and before you know, poof! You are in deep, ice-cold water frozen like a dead herring. Intelligence is a harder gift, for this you must work, you must practise it, challenge it and maybe towards the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow whereas in..
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talent
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Bryce Courtenay |
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5583a28
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When a man knows somebody cares he keeps some small place, a corner maybe of his soul clean and lit.
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love
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Bryce Courtenay |
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13fb6e4
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Innocents, the meat in a ghastly sandwich between an uncaring society and a vengeful state.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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c9ad723
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In this world there are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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6bea956
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sweet potatoes in their jackets have a large comfort value built into them
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Bryce Courtenay |
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05b00c8
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Boldness, at first a stranger to be treated with caution, soon becomes a friend, then a partner, and finally taken for granted, as is the daily relationship between married people.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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61fc657
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First with the head and then with the heart.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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30e45c9
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in each of us there is a flame that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it burns within us, we cannot be destroyed.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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cb2846b
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Over all this lay Hoppie's dictum: First with the head and then with the heart. Winning was something you worked at intellectually, emotion clouds the mind and is its natural enemy. This made for a loneliness which often let me aching to share an emotion but equally afraid that if I did so I would reveal a weakness which could later be used against me.
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winning-from-within
winning
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Bryce Courtenay |
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5d07f5c
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I felt clean, all the bone-beaked loneliness birds banished, their rocky nests turned to river stones. Cool, clear water bubbled over them, streams in the desert.
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inspirational
triumph
beginnings
endings
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Bryce Courtenay |
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923a717
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The rapacious white tribe who were arriving in increasing numbers, not only as convicts but also as settlers, wanted to own everything they touched. They slashed and burned the wilderness so that they might graze their sheep and grow their corn. They erected fences around the land they now called their own and which henceforth they were prepared to defend with muskets and sometimes even their lives. They built church steeples and prison wal..
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Bryce Courtenay |
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7f0097c
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The thing about fires most people don't realise is the noise. It's deafening so even if you shout, you can't be heard three feet away. You can never quite get used to the fury of it, it's like a mighty roar of anger that just keeps going. I suppose flame is beautiful, the way it leaps into the air like it's free to do what it wants. Other elements are also free and I guess the sea can be pretty awesome, wind too, and lightning, but fire has..
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flame
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Bryce Courtenay |
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c83c067
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The joy of a small town lies in its unchanging nature.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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6dc11b6
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Then I felt like having a piss and I did that
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Bryce Courtenay |
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1395c2c
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my only desire is to teach the word o' man and leave the word o' Gawd to the pulpit men
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Bryce Courtenay |
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9949418
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I spoke the language that had pronounced the sentences that had killed their grandfathers and sent their grandmothers to the world's first concentration camps
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Bryce Courtenay |
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8e2cd8a
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It seemed certain now that small could defeat big. All it took was brains and skills and heart and a perfect plan.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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5bac01b
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The time we are given for parenting is so short, passes so quickly and is jumbled up with so many other priorities and disruptions that, in the end, we come to doubt that we used it in the best interests of our children.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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b75d5b6
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And if you should be there and you see this beautiful cactus blossom painted silver by the moon and laughing up at the stars, this, Peekay, is heaven.
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nature
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Bryce Courtenay |
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ce5f3db
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You couldn't lose, you was playing Mozart
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Bryce Courtenay |
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8ca2c80
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A man on the run finds compassion or loveor even pretended innocence his greatest source of danger.
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runaway
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Bryce Courtenay |
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8d586cc
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Nothing is unexplained. Nature is a chain reaction. Everything is dependent on something else. The smallest is as important as the largest
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Bryce Courtenay |
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d184f0d
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The rich become rich by taking, and the poor by giving.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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f1f8c43
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Turning to Ann Gower, she smiled. "You're a good woman, Ann Gower." Ann Gower drew back and looked askance at Mary. "Don't you go ruinin' me reputation, Mary Abacus. I be a real bad woman, but a bloody good whore, and you knows it!"
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Bryce Courtenay |
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3c05fa8
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The smile, madame, is used by humans to hide the truth, the artist is only interested to reveal the truth.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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65c3f11
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Luck is a curious companion, it comes to those who believe they hold it, and is an elusive servant to those who doubt they possess it.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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4ea8d03
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While I told myself that each win was a small deposit on the ultimate ownership of the world welterweight crown, the enormous need in me to win touched a whole heap of other responses a fourteen years old can't really work out. It had something to do with rejecting the Lord, with my mother, the Judge, being surrounded by guys who came from wealthy homes, even my headless snake. While I didn't think of it as camouflage, I now know that it wa..
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Bryce Courtenay |
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c736432
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without courage, there is no luck and no hope. He who dares, wins.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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e3d95c7
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a sentiment, coming from it is not to be trusted.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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566afde
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Oupa took no notice of us just as he took no notice of his real grandchildren.
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Bryce Courtenay (Author) |
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87e8b79
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Life has a habit of going on.
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Bryce Courtenay (Author) |
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18cc852
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letter
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Bryce Courtenay |
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c87e8a5
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around a proposition or an idea or story willingly. Some
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Bryce Courtenay |
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e316c02
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is intended to break the spirit, to render harmless those who are thought to be harmful.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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45fbfa4
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but I feel sure that if people played music rather than spoke to each other, this world would be a much better place.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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212b3c6
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But I started to realize that it doesn't begin like this, that anybody can be the target for prejudice, all you have to be is "too" something . Too short, too fat, too clever, too big, too small, too slow, too new, "too different" from what others think of as normal."
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Bryce Courtenay |
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6a7fcf7
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in Mexico there is a cactus that even sometimes you would think God forgets. But no, my friends, this is not so. On a full moon in the desert every one hundred years He remembers and opens a single flower to bloom. And If you would be there and you see this beautiful cactus blossom painted silver by the moon and laughing up at the stars, this, Peekay, is heaven ... This is the faith in God the cactus has.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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3973bb8
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In Mexico there is a cactus that even sometimes you would think God forgets. But no, my friends, this is not so. On a full moon in the desert every one hundred years He remembers and opens a single flower to bloom. And If you would be there and you see this beautiful cactus blossom painted silver by the moon and laughing up at the stars, this, Peekay, is heaven ... This is the faith in God the cactus has.
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Bryce Courtenay |
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f801715
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First with the head then with the heart.
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Bryce Courtenay (Author) |