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e9a8d65
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I picked out F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" and a couple of mysteries, which always have simple, solvable problems like "How did the murderer get into the locked room?" instead of hard ones like "What causes trends?" and "What did I do to deserve Flip?" and then went over to the eight hundreds."
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Connie Willis |
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d53c473
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Perhaps that's how I should think of them, Polly thought, the troupe and Miss Snelgrove and Trot. And Sir Godfrey. Not as lost to her, but as removed to this moment in time for safekeeping.
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Connie Willis |
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702a6d8
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Management is proving beyond a shadow of a doubt they don't have enough to do," she murmured back. "So they've invented a new acronym."
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management
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Connie Willis |
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9ff3cea
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It is the end of the world. Surely you could be allowed a few carnal thoughts.
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sad
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Connie Willis |
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cd6b027
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Poor thing, consigned to a life of frivolousness and wretched things for breakfast. Not allowed to go to school or do anything worthwhile, and eel pie besides.
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women
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Connie Willis |
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a4e14a4
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Because around a crisis point, even the tiniest action can assume importance all out of proportion to its size. Consequences multiply and cascade, and anything--a missed telephone call, a match struck during a blackout, a dropped piece of paper, a single moment--can have empire-tottering effects. The Archduke Ferdinand's chauffeur makes a wrong turn onto Franz-Josef Street and starts a world war. Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard steps outside fo..
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Connie Willis |
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5ee169d
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Will I ever see you again? No. Do I love you? Yes, for all time.
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Connie Willis |
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392a2ac
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Kivrin reached out for Dunworthy's hand and clasped it tightly in her own. "I knew you'd come," she said, and the net opened."
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Connie Willis |
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37ad824
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Insecure, ill-dressed chaos theorist desires intelligent, insightful, incandescent trends researcher. Must be SC.
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Connie Willis |
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835eefe
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There is nothing more helpful than shouted instructions, particularly incomprehensible ones. I
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Connie Willis |
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07b676b
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They say the dead can't speak, but they can! The people in this book died over sixty years ago, in the middle of the ocean, with no one around them for miles, but they still speak to you. They still send us messages--about love and courage and death! That's what history is, and science, and art. That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about l..
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Connie Willis |
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7e31165
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It is a temporal universal that people never appreciate their own time, especially transportation. Twentieth-Century contemps complained about cancelled flights and gasoline prices, Eighteenth-Century contemps complained about muddy roads and highwaymen. No doubt Professor Peddick's Greeks complained about recalcitrant horses and chariot wheels falling off.
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Connie Willis |
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f3de907
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It's that undefined something we're really afraid of-the flicker of movement we don't quite catch out of the corner of our eye, the bad dream we can't quite remember when we wake up, the sound of a door opening downstairs we thought we heard. And worst of all, the things we're not sure even happened, the things that we might just have imagined, that might mean we're going mad, all those nameless, nebulous things we can't quite put our finge..
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Connie Willis |
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bbb86a7
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Virginia was working in the garden, and her husband Leonard called out for her to come inside, that Hitler was just about to speak on the radio.
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Connie Willis |
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386d442
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It was the Communists, it was the Mexicans, it was the government. And the only people who acknowledged their guilt weren't guilty at all.
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guilt
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Connie Willis |
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db0af0f
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1. Optimize potential. 2. Facilitate empowerment. 3. Implement visioning. 4. Strategize priorities. 5. Augment core structures.
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objectives
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Connie Willis |
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b3010ae
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We live in hope that the good we do here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. We also hope to win the war. We hope that right and goodness will triumph, and that when the war is won, we shall have a better world. And we work toward that end. We buy war bonds and put out incendiaries and knit stockings---" And pumpkin-colored scarves, Polly thought. "---and volunteer to take in evacuated children and work in hospitals and drive ambulances" -..
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hope
wartime
world-war-2
world-war-ii
london
resistance
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Connie Willis |
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8d36502
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Tomorrow at the press conference would be dreadful. She would be surrounded by nice young men who spoke Big Business or Computer or Bachelor on the Make, and she would not understand a word they said." "Short Story: Blued Moon"
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Connie Willis |
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4e49c73
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then in a conversational tone said, "I slapped my Aunt Martha. When my fiance died. She told me God needed him in heaven, and I hauled off and slapped her, a sixty year old woman....People say unbelievable things to you. They deserve slapping."
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death
slapping
outrage
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Connie Willis |
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cf60389
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One of the first symptoms of time-lag is a tendency to maudlin sentimentality, like an Irishman in his cups or a Victorian poet cold-sober.
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Connie Willis |
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cb3f6dd
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They were a susitute. They were what you did when you couldn't have what you wanted.
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Connie Willis |
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4245738
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Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." --Monty Python's Flying Circus"
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Connie Willis |
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1d543c7
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This is the Victorian era," she said. "Women didn't have to make sense."
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Connie Willis |
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fe52fe4
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Maybe the conference was an inversion layer of another kind, bringing me face-to-face with old friends and old places. With cancer and the Gap and the Old Man, railing about newfangled players and spicy food. Bringing me face-to-face early with death and old age and change.
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Connie Willis |
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9c688b2
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Movie Cliche #12: The Moral. A character states the obvious and everybody gets the point.
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moral
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Connie Willis |
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ac73fe4
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Then why does every sentence beginning 'We need to talk' end in disaster? Our whole evolutionary history has been about trying to stop information from getting communicated--camouflage, protective coloration, that ink that squids squirt, encrypted passwords, corporate secrets, lying. Especially lying. If people really wanted to communicate, they'd tell the truth, but they don't.
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Connie Willis |
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e69800e
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Good. Drink your tea," he ordered. "It will make you feel better." Nothing will make me feel better, she thought, but she drank it down. It was hot and sweet. Mr. Humphreys must have put his entire month's sugar ration into it. She drained the cup, feeling ashamed of herself. She wasn't the only one who'd had a bad night."
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humanity
kindness-of-strangers
scarcity
war-rations
tea
despair
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Connie Willis |
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0d382e7
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It's strange. When I couldn't find the drop and the plague came, you seemed so far away I would not ever be able to find you again. But I know now that you were here all along, and that nothing, not the Black Death nor seven hundred years, nor death nor things to come nor any other creature could ever separate me from your caring and concern. It was with me every minute.
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Connie Willis |
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4be3521
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To do something for someone or something you loved--England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history--wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.
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Connie Willis |
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8eca846
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Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy'?
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Connie Willis |
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27f1402
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You can't go yet, not without telling us what all's happened to you since we saw you last." I faked amnesia, nearly killed Alan Turing, got knocked unconscious by a collapsing wall, faked my own death, and met the Queen. "It's a long story," he said."
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wwii-fiction
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Connie Willis |
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ef0ece3
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That's the thing about poetry, it's scarcely ever accurate. Take the Lady of Shalott. 'She loosed the chain and down she lay; The broad stream bore her far away.' She lies down in the boat and goes floating down to Camelot, which couldn't possibly happen. I mean, one can't steer lying down, can one? She'd have ended up stuck in the reeds a quarter of a mile out. I mean, Cyril and I always have trouble keeping the boat headed in a straight l..
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Connie Willis |
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918d488
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I sat there watching him examine the fish and marvelling at what we'd caught. A genuine eccentric Oxford don. They're an extinct species, too...
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oxford-university
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Connie Willis |
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39337d0
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She reached the group. Eileen had been crying. She wiped clumsily at her cheeks as Polly joined them, and then smiled at her. "Are you ready?" Eileen asked. , Polly thought. "Yes." "Are you certain?" Colin said. "I know how hard this must be for you. We haven't a lot of time, but we've enough for you to say goodbye, if there's anyone else you need to--" , Polly thought."
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Connie Willis |
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abf23c7
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At first glance, this seems an improbable scenario due to both the Martians' and Emily Dickinson's dispositions. Dickinson was a recluse who didn't meet anybody, preferring to hide upstairs when neighbors came to call and to float notes down on them.14 Various theories have been advanced for her self-imposed hermitude, including Bright's Disease, an unhappy love affair, eye trouble, and bad skin. T. L. Mensa suggests the simpler theory that..
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Connie Willis |
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03bb7b6
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Those who have courage to love should have courage to suffer." --ANTHONY TROLLOPE, The Bertrams But"
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Connie Willis |
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f4147fb
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Wrong, and wrong agains,' he said. 'The likeness is already there. The metaphor only sees it. And it is not a mere figure of speech. It is the very essence of our minds as we seek to make sense of our surroundings, our experiences, ourselves, seeing similarities, parallels, connections. We cannot help it. Even as the mind fails, it goes on trying to make sense of what is happening to it.
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the-mind
parallels
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Connie Willis |
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13a8a2a
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Belki bizim zamanimizin sorunu da budur Bay Dunworthy. Kuruculari Maisry, piskoposun elcisi ve Sir Bloet ne de olsa. Roche gibi kalip yardim etmeye calisan butun insanlar vebaya yakalanip olduler.
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Connie Willis |
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25af8ad
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There was a crack of thunder so loud I was convinced I'd been struck by lightning for lying.
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Connie Willis |
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7a6077a
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It cannot rain but it pours." --JONATHAN SWIFT Oh,"
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Connie Willis |
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799977a
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maybe I should join It's Only Brunch. It's like JustDinner, but with mimosas.
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Connie Willis |
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7815bc7
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She watched him a while longer and then shut her eyes again. And even though she knew her hand was tucked beneath her cheek and he was on the far side of the room, the instant she closed her eyes he was there beside her again, his hands crossed on his chest and her hand held tightly under them, pressed safely against his heart. Who
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Connie Willis |
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9bf1ff8
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Bigotry is one of the oldest and ugliest of trends, so persistent it only counts as a fad because the target keeps changing: Huguenots, Koreans, homosexuals, Muslims, Tutsis, Jews, Quakers, wolves, Serbs, Salem housewives. Nearly every group, so long as it's small and different, has had a turn, and the pattern never changes--disapproval, isolation, demonization, persecution. Which was one of the reasons it'd be nice to find the switch that ..
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trends
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Connie Willis |
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bde604b
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But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy, lie further off." --WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, A Midsummer Night's Dream The"
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Connie Willis |